Late
                              by C. A. Gardner

                              5 A.M.
                              I never get over the panic as the lid swings shut,
                              those last few minutes before the sun rises,
                              trying to hold my arms down by my sides until I'm
                              trembling all over, until my hands
                              rise of their own accord
                              to pound against white velvet, long since in tatters,
                              a new nail
                              piercing the flesh of my fist
                              as my body explodes in a frenzy of
                              pounding and clawing
                              worse than any scream,
                              seconds before I am to sleep.
                              I wake that way, stiff and straining,
                              eyes dry and bulging as a victim of
                              rigor mortis.
                              You can't tell me it's as simple
                              as lying down for the night,
                              amidst smooth white satin sheets.
                              Every night when they lock us in the crypt--
                              for our own protection--
                              my heart shatters with panic.
                              A helplessness that links me to them yet,
                              beyond all other changes,
                              a reflex beyond mortality or time,
                              a mortal reflex.
                              They are burying me alive.

                              Morning, for me, is not what you might expect.
                              My day does not begin
                              when all your lamps are lit,
                              when you sit back comfortably in the gloom
                              to scare yourself with stories.
                              Your day is my day.
                              Your sun, the one I still ache for
                              like a lover.
                              I never slept well
                              even while dreaming my way
                              through a mortal life,
                              and now I feel the subtle shifts in clouds,
                              in leaves and branches,
                              as the sun passes overhead,
                              imagine the sun on my skin
                              like a plant that lusts
                              to drink this golden nectar.
                              Night
                              is only that--my night.
                              It is always very late.

                              I am always about to die.