Classic Poem

If one could write
like St. Augustine,
not for an inner audience,
or readers,
but for God,
there would always be
an honest accounting
from that depth
where, out of compassion,
the curtain was drawn
on the body's terrible
import until it fell
unloved
into its final disease
and the tortured
irreversible meaning
entered the sick cell,
where none play games

I know this
yet am still intimidated
by the prospect
of an audience,
to which I play,
though this be ectoplasm