You see a man
trying to think.
You want to say
to everything:
Keep off! Give him room!
But you only watch
terrified
the old consilations
will get him at last
like a fish
half-dead from flopping
and almost crawling
across the shingle,
almost breathing
the raw, agonizing
air
till a wave
pulls it back blind into the triumphant
sea.
~1962, Adrienne Rich, from Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law, c.1963