Time Enough at Last

—as if to say that it could ever be
enough, the hours and days
that heap up like brazen sins,
each moment an ode to desire,
a mind and body in such love
with each other that they would
crush the world between them,
break apart every atom.

And for what? A few years
of pages, a mound of books
pored over and worn down,
a glutton’s willing sacrifice
of flesh. You, Henry Bemis,
you of the thick-lensed glasses,
what fate did you expect
your empty world to leave to you?