Isn’t it
the most frightening thing
to lift a sheet and find
that the underside isn’t what
You thought it was?
When the fabric of life and love
turns out to be woven of lies and
cobwebs? It’s not really cloth
It’s a net that happens to have
caught all the hollow dreams
and crumpled ideas that you thought
you threw away but still they
are there in the back of your mind
with your skeletons; your silent secrets
Curled up in dark material
Gagged with rotting gauze
And then you realize that it’s the same blanket they’re cloaked in
And you want to scream but can’t.
There’s nothing that scary about bones.
What’s scary is the lack of skin and brains and beating
heart, that’s why
the fear lies
in broken old bones.
And so you try something new, sew some lace
where the edges of the twill are frayed
and cover up the holes in the net,
I mean
the sheet.
Wash it. Of course though, it rips
It always rips
And when you think it can’t get worse
Satan appears, saying
“Guess what?
Dry clean only.”