Bowlesian Sonnet

-en if this paper in your hand was once
an Aspen, thick with sunny leaves; around
the base of wet and living wood, a ground
that reeks of life and death at once, then conc-

-entrate, and know at least in brief the grand
machine you sleep in, twitching fingers, won-
-dering just how one feels a texture, sun
lights warmth, bare prickled skin, bare feet in sand.

Oh this body. How I will tend to it
seventy-five or eighty. How I will
bend arthritic knees, by five windows, still,
the summers passing. Faithful friend! Now, bit

by bit, you close each window to its clasp.
This paper in your hand was once an Asp-