HIS DEATH
HAVING died, swung outside in,
I walked the bonehouse of our sin.
From tip of toe to knoll of skull,
delving the clay among old steeps,
my brainpan moaned, my legbones whistled,
whines came wailing over tholing hollows:
roots were hard against my feet.
I stumbled, scrambled over bonerings,
over kneeknob, over shin,
slid the lank of rick and ricket,
trod the link of broken fingers,
ran with maggots in the marrow
and smelt the mouldy rug of hair.
I clambered, hobbled, reft and riven,
cracked with rack of rib and riddle,
clinging tittering on the roof
where, in a blab and wraithly gibbering,
gusty litter crucked and crumbled,
duffed and muffled in the hearded dust!
