THE BIG SLEEP
I fall into a deep sleep and wonder if I’m dead.
Silence descends.
Yikes! can’t leave without you!
I reach for you but you’re not there.
I always knew you would love me more
after I was gone.
I sing Billy Holiday’s Gloomy Sunday
and feel more relaxed than I have ever been—
light as air—my flesh and bones disappear,
just an invisible naked man underground.
It’s surprisingly warm down here,
I hope that doesn’t mean I’m in the devil’s lair.
I try to read the hieroglyphs of death
in the muddy cataracts of fossils.
Subterranean life makes a lot of noise—
rodents and nematodes digging tunnels
filled with microbes and moles
in a labyrinth of trails under tombstones.
I sleep the sleep of a hibernating bear.
When I awaken, I’ll leave these creatures with closed eyelids,
follow the sun—dig my way back up to fresh air
and dance the fire dance I forgot to do when I was there.