They don't breathe
but for the air they steal from others.
They inhaled from you
in little sips,
week after week,
year after year.
When you had no more to give,
they turned you under the soil, but,
as is their tradition,
they exhumed you, putting in your place
a book in a crystal casket.
As they cast you aside,
I delivered you hastily to the birds.
And as they did eulogize the book,
casting upon it their silk adoration,
I stepped silently up from behind,
pushing each of them into the hole,
back after back, not seeing their faces.
The earth resisted heavily,
but it seemed to me a boquet
as I lovingly cast it upon them.
I know they have come to no harm,
and they live there today,
each sipping
the other's air.