Cricket song
My head clangs, my skin congeals
when I imagine your final terrain:
the moldering gloom of the cave,
giant stone corking the mouth
to seal your body in—
you bid me to imitate you, even in this?
Until you rise, Love, I am useless.
Stretching in a long
rectangle of wall-shade,
I pretend my hand crumbles
dank sepulchral dirt. Listen.
In the corner, one cricket abides.
Soft-shelled and tooth-white,
he chirrs his dwarfed wings,
persistent song his answer
to the absence of light.
