The shell

The shell (a skin too few)

Living grows round us like a skin

To shut away the outer desolation

For if we clearly mark the furthest deep

We should be dead long years before the grave.

But turning around within the homely shell

Of worry, discontent, and narrow joy

We grow and flourish

And rarely see the outside dark

That would confound our eyes.

Some break the shell.

I think that there are those

Who push their fingers through

The brittle walls

And make a hole.

And through this cruel slit

Stare out across the cinders of the world

With naked eyes.

They look both out and in

Knowing themselves

And too much else besides. 

Molly Drake