The Skin of Sleep

The skin of sleep

is thin. It will not hold.

Its contents stumble out.

A nub of bone

lodged in earth

at the bottom of a pit.

A stranger staring

down from the rim.

The skin of sleep is thin.

It cannot hold.

Lost names spill out.

Children engraved

in ash. A sea of blood.

Only you, tenderness,

stillborn, beneath

the skin of sleep.