Delimited

Born to all 
possibility, then
narrowed
and channeled toward
this.

Delimited by
no plan, in fact — more by
a machine running over all
who are caught in its own
delimited track,

reforming all through
plain force
of weight 
and inexorable 
progress. 

I push back up
towards full height on 
these smashed
legs, pushing up with
these broken arms;

I fail, I keep falling but
more and more often 
I am at least able
to land
on my back:

my eyes
wide open; my face
not crushed
into mud;
in pain but awake

and aware
of a rumbling
as that machine
turns back. I struggle
to stand again

and face it, to fall
again but this time
with full knowledge 
of what has
felled me.

It may be
enough to say after that
that I did not die
in my sleep, that I knew
what crushed me.