Cocooning

i.

I’ve sung a lullaby,

woven from a filament of hair.

A memory —faded in nature.

What is lost is never lost

but waiting out of reach.

I hear a chorus of inscrutable noise,

oscillating. I am here,

but I am somewhere else.

Sing to me as I’ve sung

—bittersweet, but rejoicing.

ii.

I will return when the metronome no longer ticks

on. I am the beast sleeping in the cavern of its

master's mouth, tethered to the lull of living.

When hunger leaves unsated, I am the immigrant

in my skin, unknowingly being devoured.

iii.

Something

cleanses the dead skin cells

from my half-used body.

Something else

carries me to meet the ghost.