All the roots I bear.

It would find me in my childhood bed, in a rite of faithless prayers.

The ones I’d whisper in beat-full little slants,

into the bosom of my pillow;

Who would not accept my head, until I paid it’s toll

and offered up, in those words, to it, a paring of my soul.

So you’d not wilt away whilst I slept.

It still finds me now, in my marital bed,

where I learn to hide those prayers,

now said, for you, my children,

and turn them into rhythmic clearings of my throat,

breathless, ceaseless notes, now little more than hums of pipes in blackened little rooms.

And when I am older, and my days are over, it will find me in my grave,

where I will buzz those words

with vibrations of the earth, for new roots which grow from me,

So you, the children of my children, will be saved.

And although I will never meet that toll, it will find me,

bartering with my rest as I press down my head,

into the bosom of my funeral cushion.

So you, the children of my children’s children, will not perish in my stead.