Requiem

I sleep until my friend the ghost

removes its hands out from my soul

to muse around the danger close

by fire fumes and smokey coals

 

Then I, the skeleton, wake, rise,

soft in fabric- the dust, the drapes

in windy tugs I grab my thighs

to watch the bulges, aches, and shapes

 

If I don’t sleep, will my life change?

Is prison still and stuck in place?

Or all I’ll do is watch us age

in silence, in greyness, in grace

 

I’ll change my clothes, change my heart, drop my change

in bullet chambers aimed gently down drains

a wish for speaking more clearly of pain-

shadow pen sketching up love in exchange