The expense of spirit is, in fact, what
I worry about. Not so much the body,
dragging itself from limb to limb,
falling helplessly down the vast
recesses of night, hanging between
dream and the uneven ticking of clocks.
Not so much even the eyes failing, light
spent, especially when I consider Degas,
who had the weakest eyes in Paris,
still managed to draw a black line around
the body, shoulders edged with a perfection
no one else, seeing better, could ever find.
But who is it, I wonder, who also serves?
And what is it to only stand and wait?
O body swayed and brightening glance,
cast off that waste of shame, and think
(beating mind!) of how it will be to fade
into thin air! What expense of spirit!
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