Does it bother or excite me
That I'll never see The End Credits?
I never knew "persistent world"
Meant implacable yearning,
Satyric longing,
Effigy's Disease.

Slave to my online ersatz,
I grow--
Thin as a shell,
Single-minded as a snail.

I grow too in experience,
A pomegranate band,
Seasons spent underground.
Demeter's lost me to "de meter."

Does it bother or excite me
That I'm living a double life,
Unaided by gangsters, molls, or speakeasies?
That my secret identity
Is more famous than my real one?

Ligeia. Li-gei-a.
Three short syllables
Run down the tongue,
A rivulet of shiny spittle.

Spittle I'll lay in
When I inevitably collapse
At the keyboard.

Is this condition congenital?
We'll never know.
I've neatly removed myself
From the gene pool.