Sleep, my child, sleep deep
as your mother waits to die
and the music swathes you
in such glowing arms.

You stand at the gilded open mouth
of heaven while tenuous voices
descend to torture and impale
my molten core,
my heart like one bleary eye
grown weary of staying open.

I have seen the splintering
vision of rose-veined glass
in a church where I wept
at the incense of his remains.

I have savored the ghostly
helms of gondolas
gone swaying in their inexorable waters
where all my children drowned.

Blackly metallic waves,
pearly and gibbous as silken moons,
lulling and caressing the tranquil dead.

And I have learned nothing new
except the ineffable flutter of your lids
softening a rhythm
unto paradise.