I dream of death

I watch the burial from a nearby tree

which bends above the six-foot hole.

From the wooden vault, I see the sun

through closed lids. I can see its scowl;

burning redder than my father’s fury.

Hand in hand, friends and family moan.

For them, it will be an endless death.

They pray, as I, Prey to the morning blaze,

am scorched in death

through mahogany finish.

Lilies conceal the staleness of demise,

just as much; the smell

of tiredness on my mother’s clothes.

Now she dusts the tomb with a silk

handkerchief, waves off the dirt and surrenders

to grief. My father shawls

an arm around her shoulder. Simultaneously,

I feel the same tender touch. Here is love;

unconditional, even in the afterlife.  Now,

he too is watching from a nearby tree

bending above the six-foot grave,

encasing a body no longer mine.

“Look after your mother”

he whispers to me, but only his cold breath lingers  

upon my lobe and I take his place round

my mother’s shoulder. It is not my death

and no longer a dream, but at least in dream

        you live.