When Dying Eyes Close

Sometimes when dawn spreads,

Her rosy fingertips

It bleaches upon a skeleton

Of a poet who sat too long

Through many cold and lonely nights

Only to die of a stroke

Sometimes when a bee flits past

To seek for a flower

It cuts its wing on the edge of a blade

That sunk deep in a woman’s neck

When a lover became an animal

Consumed by echoes of a dark cave

Sometimes when dew lasts

It finds the tale of a soldier

Who grew tired of a leading hand

That had threatened to shrivel his mind

Till he broke free and sought for a new truth

With a lot of cold upon his palm

Sometimes the promises of a new hello

Only waits for he who slept soundly dreaming

Of the river his house would stand by

Or of ripe corn splitting dry in the sun

Or how far away he would travel

If he could use her toe nails as units of currency