Assimilate (rewritten)

[tectak]

question-- should I expand the imagery to more than the last few lines?


EDIT 2

"Nesting"

Assimilation guts preservation. Only
convention fastens us to custom.
Conserve like minded company
but coalesce publicly
lest habit's beak
shreds us like a mouse--
culture's diminutive corpse.

Hello lalt,
Please think no less of me  but I would hesitantly like to remind you that this is a "poetry" workshop.There is nothing in the definition of poetry--frankly, there is no definition--that prohibits you from posting a point in two sentences and hoping it is poetic. Except when it isn't....and this isn't.
The problem is multi-level. You are "asking" for crit in a poetry workshopping forum...so I ask you,what's to crit? Is what you post clear in intent? Look at the first line. Read it out loud to your pizza delivery boy. Is he dazzled by its perspicacity? No, I think not. Is he horripilating at its emotional high? Doubtful. Is he in awe of the phraseology? Unlikely. Does he have any bloody idea what you are talking about? Well, I don't either. You have made a simple (bleedin' obvious) point obscure. Why? Did someone say that made it poetry? Try as I might, I cannot see what this opener achieves. If "guts" is an adjective then peristalsis is a city in Mongolia. Try to write in a clear fashion. The poetry may or may not follow but you will have more time to consider metre, rhyme  metaphor, syntax, imagery and INTENT. What you have written is at best, and in more than one area, inconsequential.
Editing on this small scale will be as difficult as crit. I do not have enough going in in the piece to make more useful comment than I have, hopefully, already. The enjambment at L1 end is moronic. Perhaps enough is just right. Oh, and do try to "clear your thoughts before posting the results of your unclear thinking.
Best,
tectak

Edit :
"Assimilate"
Alteration or individual preservation?  Only
convention fastens us
to culture lest habit's beak
shreds it like a mouse,
this diminutive corpse.

original: 
Alteration or preservation?  Only
retrospection fastens us
to convention lest habit's beak
swallows it like mice,
these diminutive corpses.