Sponges

(A funeral home poem)

There is something dark and weary in me.
Something bleary-eyed,
in need of rest.

There is something in me
that lingers along with the dead,
something they take
into the ground,

the claustrophobic silence
of their caskets.

I imagine when the lid
is closed, their only
faculty available is smell

and this is rewarded
by the floral soap we use
to cleanse their doll-parts.

It must linger for years,
trapped as it is.
Must permeate skin and dreams,
so porous and soft–-

cloud-ash sponges
crying out for saturation,
forever denied in the end.