One inch of silver…
So little pay for so great an effort
And yet that is all there is.
Enough, perhaps, to feed, and clothe, and house
This paltry mind, this body
Worn thick with the dross of age,
The memories of love’s commerce;
The collected detritus of a life.
There still remain here, even now,
Those mercurial wounds,
Small scars on my skin, in my veins;
Reminders of the poisoned struggle between Mars and Venus.
These irritant lumps of damaged flesh
The tissue divided from itself and forced outwards, dying
Cells producing one last gasp of external expression,
Memories of their creation, the fallen seed,
Palpable pale reminders of past invasions;
These wars of desperate resistance fought
On bodies torn to pock-marked ruin.