THE BRASS medallion profile of your face I keep always.
It is not jingling with loose change in my pockets.
It is not stuck up in a show place on the office wall.
I carry it in a special secret pocket in the day
And it is under my pillow at night.
The brass came from a long ways off: it was up against hell and high water, fire and flood, before the face was put on it.
It is the side of a head; a woman wishes; a woman waits; a woman swears behind silent lips that the sea will bring home what is gone.

it loomed like a ghost in the falling day.

an hour past the town on the way
the old man's eyes bore surprise

i wouldn't advise it, sir, not wise
waking them up is no sport

they who're sleeping in the dead men's fort.

All along i've been a phasmophobic
they ceased never to rule my head
lurking in nooks and under my bed.

it sounds nice to talk about spirits and souls
but at nights when hollows of burning coals
mistily appear and not in a dream
choke me out of scream
to that terror i fall an abject slave.

but my companion on that dusk was brave
looking at those eerily towering spires
he said let's try meeting a few vampires.

there was no door opening with a creak
but inside was a musty dark hole
where daylight made a quick retreat
as if to let the dead peacefully stroll.

we climbed up stairs strewn with dry leaves
amid sensing a storm brewing on the wing
for the awakened dead in anger seethes
to have their rest broken by the living.

soon swept us a gale of the squeaking dead
driving us out of that well occupied well
surely startled by the intruders' raid
the winged vampires were fleeing like hell.