hiding my frailty , my timidity , my humility behind these cotton walls , standing more erect , less vulnerable , shielded , encased ; and ready for rituals of returning ghosts which loom like the drowned , floating face up in the swamps , casting their doubts at me as i prepare self-consciously under their parental gaze , cupping the mountain cold phenomenon with inadequate sleek pink chicken feet hands , diving into ice which crushes and splinters to the recesses of my inner chambers , flooding down through long drawn aisle and fretted vault the peeling anthem swells the note of praise , homework for tonight , a dull and lifeless stone church poem swollen and pealing , leaving distaste and curled brown greasy stains of leaves , of yellow pages , of headmaster 's steel grey hair .