The Cautious Hour

I’ve known long the collapse of this

The intricacies of the human form

The brave walls

The skin

The ports of heart and lungs and kidney

I’m sensitive to the shadows of the blood

the whisperings of things to come and

resided fully with them in the airport. malingering

in its own way, desperate for affection, a leave.

Awakening, to find that though it’s burning

and burning fast,

I am not ready to go out.

Not by my own idiocy. 

Not by drag on cigarettes.

The pants on fire.

We all just want to walk a while, longer.

Beg this foreknowledge, come so young of

the body bag strip searched,

left turning on a locked wheel till someone finds it,

claims it between the cones

Remove the stones for smoother sailing of the gurney

The ribbon tied around our toe, less tattered.

Identified by its own owner, and

taken home at the cautious hour,

by hands of true mercy.