Christmas with the Dead
Who will you be when you wake from this chrysalis shape?
I'm fighting for your body, for your mind
To be the same when you return
From landscapes still invisible to me.
I cannot win. There are no holidays
Among the dead, and they alone remain
Unchanged from day to day. Motionless,
I stand, as motionless, you move through time
Towards timelessness with each repeating gasp
And twitch across the monitors. Beneath
The paper of your eyes an epic roars,
A work so vast no human mind can publish it,
Though I would give my soul
To hear a single syllable, or rid you of a single word.
December 14, 1998