Redux

With blood lips
I touched the mud
The grave
Freshly-dug
Cried in pain

The earth loosened
A toe peeped out
Then the feet
Hardened soles
Like tough travellers
Moved out

A body arched
Aching to meet
I ran my hands
Over your frozen torso
Stiff muscles, stiff flesh
Skin as taut as asbestos
Sheets
Guarding against the heat

You smelled of soil and roses
Not yet dead
I inhaled your still breath
And poked into your pores
To bring out sweat
How you sweated
Each time
My nails gnawed deep
You would lick my fingers
Clean

You loved yourself
Your scent
Your teeth marks
Your wine
Poured over me
To make me look
As drunk as you
And sway like a snake
As you tugged at the hair
With butter fingers
Slipping through them
Right till the tailbone
Where they ended

There you’d rest your hand
As if on sand
To create a sculpture
By burrowing
Sticks and stones
Into the niches
And then let the waves
Ride over them
To destroy

I woke up to see
They had buried you instead
Now we are in the grave
Together
Your face is covered
The sheath refuses to part
I tug at it
My hands loosen from my wrist
A bone has broken

I bend down
With blood lips
To find yours
Suddenly your arms
Strangle me
They are tentacles
Two, four, six, eight
I stop counting
I am encircled

Choking
I find my way out
Vein-like trails run along my body
The skin is covered with mud
Eyes are shut
Into a forced reverie
Trying to walk
I find my feet have turned to lead
There is not a strand of hair on my head
A passer-by asks
Are you dead?

I point towards you
Your toe is still moving
Your feet kicking
They can see your arched body
He is alive
They say

They try
No one can bring you out
You promised you would return
I did not know it would be as soon as you left
I have made the bed
Fluffed up the feather pillows
Snuffed out old candles
Sprayed fresh fragrances
Splayed out
For you to play out
Another life

Redux

~FV

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In memory of the year gone by and a welcome to the year ahead