She prowls my mind

like ravening hellfire 

upon sleep-leaden eyelids

Noiseless as a seafaring corpse 

she rouses from death 

like a fist through the wall.

The coast straggles onward

a pair of yearning hands 

like callow ashes 

flung above the valley

inertia consuming us

like flesh fated to maggots.

The windows lie open

a two-tongued prayer  

fickle as a knife’s edge 

certain as the tracks below

we walk this haggard line.

Those around us seek flight

bodies tumbling out of windows

like burning paper airplanes

collapsing, faint as snow 

upon an earthen grave.

Still she wanders this barren hallway 

like a specter of my ill hours 

undying as the moon.