Mania

Crucifying on Tarot's Celtic cross,

the Devil tells me, "Scorpio, you've stung

your head with winged visions from the eyelids

of the dead." A kaleidoscope flutters

terror through me: a blood sun sets on this

evil Calvary, where no mourners wail,

and stock-still leaves on dormant trees hiss,

"Eli, Eli lama sabachthani."

The earth is sound. No veil is torn. The saints

sleep soundly; their graves unborn. I wake

to waking, and wish my waking done. Sleep

escapes me, and I wish my visions done.

Michael Weeks

We were sixteen when you died.
When I was seventeen, Stacey Brice 
handed me a paper doll skeleton
that you had cut and buried within 
your Geometry book. Now I’m forty one,
and those paper bones are in this poem, 
atop my shelf, and older than you ever were.