Cot Death

I have lived it over and over again,

the same moment, the same

slightly, indifferently flickering sunrays over the curtains,

dancing up to the ceiling, above her cot and then her world.

If you reach your hand down,

you would notice immediately,

your eyes would begin to tear and your hand stop in its track,

as if the air were a transmutation of fog

that pores out into a grey mist.

If you tasted this air, it would first taste bitter,

then hot, then surely burn your tongue.

It is like what we imagine nightmares to be:

dark, deep, unendingly drawn from the cold heart of the world,

as if derived from extinct volcanoes

stagnant, motionless, solidified, and since

pain cannot be measured, flowing, and flown.