Sorrow drops

The breathing weight stays flat on the mattresswhile the thinner part slips the latch,passing through the unhinged dark,a corridor of closed doors, a narrow gatewhere the clock-ticks drop away,stepping out where the daylight hasn't happened yet.

Below the fence, the unripe ones scatter and collide,small shoes kicking up the gravel,holding hands across the dirt.Nobody sees it yet,though the human mold is not a thing unpredictable,a few tries and you’ll get it right:the older hands at home already pressing the soft wax,feeding their own dark tallow into the wickso the next mouth carries the same greased flame.

There they go, this one and that one,giggling, sliding down the pine,waiting - just waiting to show you allwho they actually are.

Two stillnesses stand by the links.No breath leaves their mouths,yet the thought crosses between them like a wireand strikes me where I stand unseen:

" That one at the top of the ladder "" thirty winters, and he opens a throat for coins."" The one holding his sleeve goes under the shovel by ten ""And that one, halfway down the board, still laughing "" The worst of the lot. Four houses ruined, and he dies in a clean bed."

Suddenly the whole sum drops into my chest,every final room, every scream behind drywall,the butcher and the lamb trading turns on the wood,a ton of finished history pressing downbefore a single adult tooth has come in.I carry the nausea of the long view back through the gate,back into the mattress,awake with the names of what hasn't bled yet.