The call cleared the sleep from my eyes
Like a plague of Egyptian flies.
I donned the first clothes I could find,
Listening to my morbid mind.
So I go down the broken street,
With no eager haste in my feet
And a heart that’s feeling wary,
To the curséd cemetery
Where I no longer go to mourn
The rotting wife from me torn
By death’s cold and unyielding hand,
Which destroys all that one has planned.
And as I reach the iron gate,
Whose cherub has a rusted pate,
My mocking mind says, “You’re too late
To stop the thieves who desecrate.”
Granite leans, and angels sag;
My apprehensive feet I drag
To the corner where lies a hole
And where recently lay a soul—
Lifeless, in supine position,
Waiting in decomposition.
How could this stench not have debunked
The desire to stir the defunct?
Carrion circle in the air,
And, lo, I see some strands of hair
Strewn in the grass the dew did wet.
Is this the hair I once did pet?
Ants bustle off with gobs of flesh.
Was this the skin I did caress?
But peering into the abyss
That seemed her company to miss,
Only darkness could I there find,
As would her eyes by death now blind.
I pick up a casket splinter—
Part of the one she did enter?—
And I wonder how this could be.
What could provoke such barbary?
Where lies the corpse that I’ve interred
Where worms and maggots oft have fared?
What hideous fiend would disturb
The sanctity of this suburb
Where souls reside far from the work
And toils the living’d love to shirk,
Except it be not by this end,
The path to which never does wend,
But goes straightly and steeply down
Some six long feet beneath the ground,
Where the living, gasping for air,
Would scarcely seem to have a prayer
Of managing a prison break
If buried alive by mistake?
Oh, how I did want to vomit
With the fury of a comet!
The police knew not who were the blokes;
The only witnesses were oaks.
Since there was naught that I could do,
To my home I speedily flew,
Thinking that there I could bathe,
While my mind spun ’round like a lathe.
And in my haste I never saw
The rotten meat that worms did gnaw
Scattered like jetsam on the way.
My mind was dark; the skies were gray.
The grimy knob I ne’er noted,
Thinking of the dead and bloated,
Until a pungent odor rose
Up to meet my pitiful nose.
Egad! Surely this could not be.
My mind is playing tricks on me.
But dirty footprints marked the path
Through the kitchen and past the bath.
Toward my bedroom the prints head,
And there lying upon my bed
Was a vision that did me chill,
For ’twas my bride that time did kill.
Surely she could not be alive,
For my lonely years have been five.
Yet lying there in her own goo
While aqueous humour seeped through,
She fixed me with a steely stare
That seemed to take away my air.
Though missing several of her locks,
She still retained her vocal box,
For I would swear I heard her say,
“My darling, why did you betray?
What is this thing that you have done
To anger your long-sleeping one?”
My mind must have started to fray.
Astonished, I managed to say,
“I know not, for I did cherish
You e’er until you did perish.”
She rose up like an addled swan,
A ghastly thing to look upon.
Her ragged approach did me stun;
I was too petrified to run.
I watched with incredulity
As she drew near ominously.
“Ah, now you attempt to be brave
When you are but a yellow knave.
There is nothing that can you save
From the misery of my grave.
Though you were true to me in life,
Dying makes me no less your wife.
E’en though you thought I’d never see,
My spirit watched your adult’ry.
And though you’d say ’twas just a kiss,
Your face was painted with sheer bliss.
If I cannot have you, should she?
I will never let you go free.”
Her languid advance did mock
The helpless state of my shock.
“With jealousy fueling my rage,
I entered my decaying cage.
Furious, from the ground I burst
To fulfill the plan I’d rehearsed.”
She reached the spot where I did stand,
Placing on me a gory hand.
There was no warmth left in her touch,
But nothing could have burnt as much.
Ne’er releasing me from her stare,
Her raspings once more split the air.
“Remember when youth crowned my head?
‘I’ll love you forever’, you said.
You vowed that death could never us part,
And sealed it carving out a heart
And our initials on a tree,
Which symbolized your love for me.
For this tree, like our love, should grow
Enduring even winter’s snow,
The cold of which would be like death:
Untimely, smothering my breath.”
And then she tried to kiss me where
Only mortal lips should e’er dare.
She oped her mouth and worms fell out;
My neighbors never heard my shout