- 28 -

Poppy
Sage Justice

Helios creeps along a red sky
spider sulking on the ceiling,
reclusive in the hot midnight.
A corpse woven in silk
waits to be plucked
and hand-delivered
into the arms of  loving Death,
mouth slacked, slivered eyes,
the sweetness of  rot
not yet settled in.
Yellowed skin hung like drapes
over frail, unfeeling bones,
pale in the shivering clover fields,
September chill slithering
through cracks in the windows.

No You left in this body.
No use clutching its cold claw.

Outside, quaking aspens shudder,
their unseeing eyes frozen
as wind carries through them
the spirits of  the Gone.
The Worker of  the Woods
hammers away in early morning,
nails his ghost to every tree.
When Helios first touches the land
if  you crane your neck just so,
you may hear him.