Somnus

May sinews grow over your laughing mouth
And your mockery be knitted away
And lying wordless and blind in the bitter earth
Listening for silent reflections
Siphon black dirt through withering hands
(Too cold for loving)
To count time.

Hear the footsteps of the living
Thumping above you
Disturbing your melancholy quiet
And rhyming your wretched regret
With some constancy
Some steadfast promise
Some strange and comforting pledge
Hammering.

Dark ambiguous filth mars your wasted sight
No lust meets your rotting retina in courting shades of passion red

Somnus sends sores
To blister and splinter the vain and delicate skin
Of weak, languid backs
That hunch and hide and sneak
And bend like a weasel or a rat.