They do not tell you the Dead will ride you so far

You will almost join them, you

half-alive, standing between meaning

and meaning, the stuff you purchase

and the stuff that matters.

They do not tell you, but then you know

the dead who ride you matter, and so

you listen, here, in sleep and waking

and on-coming cars that aren’t your death and

warriors and villains and blood-soaked earth.

Her death, and your life, flowing out

where later weeds take hold, and flowers

remembering what others forget, remembering

what others could not hear, there,

between stone and stone and earth.

They do not tell you you shall die their deaths

Nor what you will become, still living

half sleeping, half waking, blooded

vessel flowing over from rim,

to stone

to now.