I'll sleep when I'm dead

when my corpse is cooling

my eyes are blank

and my hands barely curling

the red flush leaking

like the last dregs of an empty cup

laying as a doll

so white and clean

porcelain on silk

the white of empty lips

the stiff and freezing joints

no rise and fall

of a hollow chest

soft blue veins

painting frail skin

as if the softest stroke of watercolor

on a canvas

of perfection

the angles, the lines

a look of peace

and eyes shut tight

the land of dreamers

of paradise and nightmare

Lady Sleep

and her Lord

come for me at last

to cradle me in craven arms

wrapped as if a babe

facing the winter's sunrise

pillow of down and bed of silk

pooling sheets surround

the milky gauze of a canopy

swept back in despair

for when I head for bed

I head for sleep

and I'll sleep when I'm dead