I have always lived by the laws of flesh
shrinking tighter and shorter each hour.
Now I’ve nothing to lose but cracking skin.
Yet curiosity stretches wider, too strong an itch.
In liquid imagination, I swan dive into
the pool of my widest eye, splash down
into the vast blue ocean of mind,
wash my bones back to the civilized shore,
where those awaiting my last breath
pick the marrow clean.

On their solid beachhead, my skeleton
has no heart, only a hard brotherhood,
where nothing more than hollow bones
lean against one another
and begin to crack.

– Robert S. King