The Experiment

The Experiment

His doctors doctored him so that he might
remain alive immeasurable years
slumbering like a snail all day, all night,
safe in his shell, incapable of tears.
His dreams, they promised, would be far more splendid
than anything a human could envision.
For the morose, it’s what they recommended.
Of course it was, they told him, his decision.

He drifted at his leisure like an eagle,
partook of the most finger-licking fare,
shared forms of love that went beyond illegal,
wallowed in warm lagoons, vaguely aware
of distant rumblings in a dying Earth
echoing through ten trillion plies of mirth.

(Appeared in The Rotary Dial)