Cleave the terrible meaning into two
It starts with the insidious I--
Whole universe pregnant
Of which not one sheer, shorn sigh can be released:

And yet, it is wet on lips, serious as blood
To speak these dread in a tongue that is strange
So that you would be safe from their intentions
Simply to give pleasure to this hopeful mouth, of forming their ripe shapes.
The same inscribed, only to strike away
Perhaps
In making them briefly actual, therein lies salvation?

But too, the nightmare
That if this destiny is given its head
The fugue of the Horsemen ends.