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| THIS IS THE WAY they dispose of the dead In Tibet. Letting nothing go to waste. The loose bodies, with their blood still, Are lifted to high roofs, offered to the sky. In this way everything becomes a temple And bells ring to catch the carrion birds In flight. Glorious bells! Unsettling Circlers! They alight like balding mathematicians, Like ancient men huddled over maps. Their steepled wings flap now and again Like a preacher searching a hymnal; Their beaks could be penning red sermons As the umbral body is unsewn, consumed--- Concealed through all avenues of heaven, Borne again aloft in a scream of grace Echoing down the mausoleum of dark. Michael Titus lives in Spencer, West Virginia, where he is at work on a novel. |
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