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MORT-SAFE

Mort-safe. A wrought-iron frame to prevent dead bodies from being exhumed by resurrectionists.

I

First snow.

Outside this window
boundaries gradually lose
their stone walls.
Outside this window
everything turns to braille.
Inside
the room is white, cold;
the window edges inward with frost.
This house slowly sinks
under the ashes of clouds.
Wood, plaster, flesh
keep in, keep out.
Out there it waits,
the lie to this quiet.

Snow continues.

II

The earth cards out a moon
and I am raveled in it.
The moonlight spins me;
night sky threads me
through needles of ancient stars;
deep woods anchor the stitch.
I embroider deep snow
with heraldry of blood
word, breath, line, gut until
my skin is a pale message
spread over stone and tree,
fingered by the wind and
signed into darkness.
This room no longer wears me -
all loomed, and time with no shears.

III

But each taste of harmony
dissolves in the mouth,
burns, is breathed out.
And such order as we find
we cherish -
but like the rolling scenery
in old films
it passes us as we stand still,
the illusion of moving forward
a sop to our ending.
Harmony is a dark business;
we are cocked between
agony and sweetness.

Learn more about this author, Michael Bettencourt.
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