I Saw My Body Dreaming

“I Saw My Body Dreaming”

Gather, enshrouding dark to my supper.
This is my body. This is my shame—
My body! The last great deception.
You see me caged in what I have loved—
The final reflection.
For so long, it was safe here—
But it’s not helping anymore.

I wakened in the night,
Without disturbing my slumber.
I saw my body dreaming—
Somehow, I had left it behind,
I saw the skin become stone—
So much more than I had hoped for…
The wars had been laid aside—
What cares bedewed the sleeper’s brow
Lay buried in the vestiges of blood,
For long had the stone been bleeding,
To bleed no more its own ruin.

A sigh escaped the surrounding night.
Stalking from these mortal relics.
I placed my hand upon the sleeper,
And found only grains of sand,
Where once flesh was made stone.
And amid the ruins of what had been Man
Lay, end-to-end, the bones of his deities,
Self-slain in offering to Their own shrines.
What words did they speak,
Beyond a fading cry of, “Who shall say Amen?”

© 2023 Marten Hoyle