Catacomb

Look at the bones,

ten hundred femurs mortared with skulls,

The avenue of the dead is dim

and we walk it breathing moist air in

and the ceiling is low and it’s quiet ahead.

You can touch them. Touch their eyes,

their knees, their jaws, their chins.

And we will soon be like them,

stacked up bones in a catacomb,

82 steps downstairs, under the subway and the sewer lines,

under the roots and the pipes and the prayers.

I think of your skin, I try and picture you bare,

but without it you’re dead, for your flesh makes you fair,

and I prefer you with it on, and warm,

and it’s rather cold down here, my dear.

Still and damp and without cheer.

Look at the bones,

ten million femurs, all unknown.

But I know your name,

and that is the difference between you and them,

the difference between life and death,

the difference, my love, between bones and flesh.

Ten million bones in the catacombs,

but I go with you back up to the sun,

for that is where the living belong.