But just then temperance whispers: you are dull

sober. You’re still a shit and self-possessed —

 

the way devils possess the infidel,

the way cancer still lurks in your left breast

 

— possessed and achingly lonely. Restraint

didn’t change that. All mild calm has brought you

 

is new panic, all your old fears, that quaint

dread of future fuck-ups to come. You knew

 

that there’d be hell to pay but why is hell

so worn? forlorn? The last horned god has left

 

the woods, the last great shark fished from the sea.

This is your inheritance. You shall tell

 

of your riches — flat, gray, cut off, bereft

— and all that happens after ecstasy.