To the Sprinter

I wait now

for a better time, when you have lost a drop

of your beauty, when you might perceive better

what you leave

by dying.

If not from within the lung, then in some other external way, while you’rexxxxxclimbing a rock,

I’ll kill

whatever, isn’t that what you say to one another—whatever—

youth is a bell, it announces itself

over the yards and lawns of others standing in the ordinary day

and its sound

reminds me of you, young runner—

blue, lit-up dash—

in the stadium race and darkness.