I cut my teeth on death.
Opened my eyes to a too-tall casket
Filled with the fresh scent of funeral home.
Cried, cried, cried because it
Smelled like my own little hungers.

Time was recumbent and rusting under its skin
From the words beating again and again
In the mouth of the old man from the funeral factory.
They were singing on fleshy metal meat
About what pain cuts like.

Too hard benches and too angry light
Shooting from the many-colored windows
With half-rate pictures recycled
From a time like this one
Hurt like a god to these little eyes.

The beams stretched and grew like a Gospel of Pain,
Eating, eating, eating my grandfather's casket
Into its hour by hour growing light
Like a painting dooming a moment to swell
Into an imitation of forever.

The light was angrier outside when we left.
The old man had banned it from witnessing
A husk and a promise of rot
And every would-be-martyr that had been called
From the depths of just-below-heaven.

It was like a nap, someone said
When they remembered to feed me,
Remembered to answer all the usual questions,
Remembered to tell me that the worst of things
Only happen to the worst of people.