Now as I watch the progress of the plague,

The friends surrounding me fall sick, grow thin,

and drop away. Bared, is my shape less vague

 —Sharply exposed and with a sculpted skin?

I do not like the statue's chill contour,

Not nowadays. The warmth investing me

Led outward through mind, limb, feeling, and more

In an involved increasing family.

Contact of friend led to another friend

Supple entwinement through the living mass

Which for all that I knew might have no end,

 Image of an unlimited embrace.

I do not just feel ease, though comfortable:

Aggressive as in some ideal of sport,

With ceaseless movement thrilling through the

whole,

their push kept me as firm as their support.

But death—Their deaths have left me less defined:

It was their pulsing presence made me clear.

I borrowed from it, I was unconfined,

Who...