"So Long, Farewell" and "A Day In The Life of the Saints"

So Long, Farewell

The shadow lengthens my spread fingers.
My hand amphibiates. When I touch you

you’ll sense the difference. So long, farewell,
I’m on the way to being something else.

My mind climbs windowpanes and walls
with this new grip. In the in-between,

time for a death poem with revisions.
To thank the living for being here.

To thank the dead for not forgetting.
My memory regresses, regenerates

its missing parts. There’s too much past
in me. The place the tail once grew is called

the sacrum because it’s holy to Osiris,
the long-fingered, green-skinned god

who decides the fate of the soul
by weighing in his hand the heart.

A Day in the Life of the Saints

That day the grass mowed us down
though there was little left of us.

Wind rose from the west and
made everything stand still.

Taking advantage, we draped
our underclothes on the tide to dry.

All the light punched out of us,
we reeked of kerosene before the fire.

Feet black with hoar frost, our virgin
mother belted out the final aria

of Madam Moth. It goes like this: