You turn in your sleep, and
it is at times like these when I wish
you could wake and listen: I am ill.
I know there are times when
you lie awake, hearing the sounds of
another’s bed, hearing the sounds
of children running in the streets
after dark. These are rudimentary:
the skin is leaving my body.
Organs, too, disintegrate like
ripened fruit, until I am returned
to where I began: the bone, the marrow,
until the marrow, too, has been drunk
by distant birds.
This is all I have left to give you.