Dust
       

Those who sleep in the dust
have seen better days.
Grey specks veil sealed
eyes, mouths, and legs.

Once they could feel the palm
of a child’s hand curled inside
their own live hand.

Decades they glided
or shuddered through
life’s wild trials. Once they could rise
from this state and spit out
the seeded dust of sleep and memory
and walk above the grass and dirt.

Once they could bleed.

Those who sleep in the dust
have seen better days. They only wake
when the letters of their names are caressed
against the lips of the living.
They shake off the suit of ash,
and rise up again.

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Copyright © 2013 Maureen A. Sherbondy All rights reserved
from Eulogy for an Imperfect Man
Brick Road Poetry Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission