The Dead

The dead do not return to us
but hang suspended
in our dreams; barnacle-
encrusted puppets
of white fat
and prayer flags,
pulled apart on morning tides
reassembled each night
by the dreaming sea.

No ferryman no boat
avoids the toll of nightly sleep
and so at different depths
all drogues gone
we pinwheel down
through an indestructible population
of delicate souls and demons,
furious, featureless,
the forgotten and the authentic dead,
our shark-tormented lovers,
slack dogs and ruined women
with moonlight dribbling from
their mouths.

We drink until their deaths
clog our stiffening hearts
then resurrect, sleep-washed,
collapsed into our own smallness
in the grudging dawn,
cry not for the lost
but for our helpless self
adrift in bright air
both owl and field mouse
counting the hours
until we sink again
or rise again
or die.