The Puzzled Skull

Blue days, plain nights,
Black tea phrases
Get into you,
The sight of mice

On sphagnum moss,
Fragile corpses
On future peat
That won’t decay.

But the raven
Eats them first. Strange
How the words fall
In you reversed,

You, the frail skull,
We, phenolic
Words that will keep
What’s left in us.