they still reek of stale smoke

like the golf-green front porch of this widow’s home
locked,
years of promises enclosed.

And the dead men
they’d lined up all day
one by one
just to pass through

And when the last one has left, like an alley to death
your body is but
a cave

holy in its’ loneliness

no man’s words reverberating off
the walls inside your brain.

when your body stops being a hallway

no longer weighing their heavy thoughts, their pending deaths
all their could be’s making your worried skin
ripe with sweat

you pull grief out of yourself
like weeds,
ripped from their garden-beds.

love
all wrapped up, lifeless
spun, in their careful webs


when finally, they shut themselves in their coffins

and your death guilt has dulled

your dreams will condemn
all the dead men
as you watch them shovel dirt
all night to
bury themselves
side by side