The line of them is long. They tread
on my heart. They walk through my bones.
Their feet pass through my ribs. My head
is as air to them. They walk on stones
beneath me and their limbs are slick with rain.
It is the rain that sent them and their tread
comes on and on. They carry sticks and pain,
skins and bones, and they, the living dead,
walk through my heart. They tread on it as though
I were not there. They are not here for me
but for the fire from the cave, below
the aeons of dust – below, where it burns free
of change. This is why they come. They go
through my heart to the ash hearth below.