He praised his God
for the expertise
of his torturer and his chef.
---
Lonely he may be
but, each time he bolts his door
the last thing at night,
his heart rejoices: "No one
can interfere with me now."
-
He woke in the small hours,
dismayed by a wilderness
of hostile thoughts.
-
Thoughts of his own death,
like the distant roll
of thunder at a picnic.

-W.H. Auden