For the Unshriven

“The good years shall devour them"
—King Lear 5.3.24

The body receives its embrace but
only by the anti-body. Effete angels, stoic
guardians of suffering, circled by the birds
of perpetration, look on in translucent hopelessness.
Spurred on by anesthetists, I fall on the mercy of the corpse.

The world enforces the larceny of living. A widow vacations
in the Alps, falls in love with her concierge. Across
a desert, a Bengali widower walks a crooked
mile. Bring spices, an incensed container,
one sacrifice, a decorated carving knife.