naked

Some experiences, like needles, twist
Through and thread our innermost gist,
    Stringing together on life’s thin tether
Both beads of brilliance and bands of blether.

We’re granted too rarely a clemency
    By our impossible-to-please frenemy,
Time, as we numbly bear upon the breast
          Our chaplet of choices and chains confessed.

Fate will fit us with all our finery
    And shall garnish our grave, if in irony;
But those robes I’d slip between the shears,
          To be nakedly unreined of my nether-years.

          A wiser man, yet a fool to forgive,
With no charter nor chance to the past relive,
    I’m less than dressed for my best moments now—
And seek no crown for the crest of my brow.

Previous Post:
    Poetry: Selfsmith
        https://windstrewn.com/2018/08/28/selfsmith/