Crack the casket lid and take my lover home
Cut away the flesh and sinew, hack the bone
Slap the slab and pierce the jigsaw till it’s sewn
*
Search the hallowed ground, a stone, a memory
Then dig for death, a corpse of one once dear to me
Fill the barrow, wheel away by raven night
Hobble down the cobbled road towards the light
*
Vaulted dank laboratory, black with bloody
Stains and pale remains of loved ones I shall study
Piece by bitter piece. Regret I hose away
Then labour long to resurrect a bygone day
*
Jane’s green orbs once danced upon my firm young skin
Silvia’s tongue and flashing teeth I stitch within
Amanda’s sweet lips – fit to raise the dead; Anne’s hair
Completes the pillowed head; I leave it sleeping there
*
Such alabaster breasts were May’s; whose suckled teats
Were these? And here, so taut, the belly of my teacher.
Reaching for me, Judith’s skilful teasing hands
Dear Lorna’s lissome legs await my harsh demands
*
Wait! This bungled bag of bones entails the beat
Of organs… Becky’s brain and Martha’s heart replete
With lights and larynx; Stella’s stomach for affairs,
Eschewing spleen and brewing bile oft biding there
*
A spark! A flash! Beneath the sheet the monster wakes
‘Alive! God, It’s alive!’ I cry. The body shakes
And rises, bares its perfect torso. Scars are healed!
In heaven’s name! I made an angel, now revealed
*
In all her naked glory; now she bids me lie
And taste her perfect flesh. Such wonders I espy!
My loves, compounded into one immortal creature
Each donating but a single perfect feature
*
Break the silence, chase the shade across the wastes
Crack my eyes and see the icy truth and taste
Her lips squeezed dry by tired familiarity
Thank God, tonight my lovers lived inside of me
*
