Clod, Clot, Cloud

The same word. It’s the wholeness
Of the freshly dead that’s so
Disturbing. How can they not

Be there, be in there, in that
Fully articulated
Body, often fully dressed?

Everything you recognize
As person seems to remain.
How is this a lifeless clod?

In English, the Old English
Word for skies and clouds fell out
Of use centuries ago

In favor of a weird trope,
Pale atmospheric vapors
Imagined as clots and clods,

The sky as dirt. The word cloud
Derives from that metaphor.
They are often piled in clumps,

But did they really look like
Earth more than like wet welkin?
You’re wrecks thanks to metaphor

Hitched to hypersensitive
Pattern detectors, such that
Masses of clouds can appear

Like masses of rocks or hills,
And corpses can seem to breathe
Out souls that ascend as clouds.