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.
