messy wisdom

Death is in my chest

Death pours two cups of peppermint tea in her best china 
she meekly braids and unbraids her hair and
softly hums over the beat of my pulse and
taps her fingers on the table like glissandos 

Death whispers a prayer for the spiders in the walls then 
she sweeps away their long-spun webs and 
writes a letter she'll never send and 
whisks my sins clean in the laundry 

Tonight Death waits for my return
she sits cross-legged on the floor and
fastens my breath to hers and
wails in choral anguish and
aches to receive me in a warm embrace
on a coir welcome mat 

and tonight, when I close my eyes,
I will rest in the bed she has made.