Sleeper

Under the empty heavens of sensation

the seas of blood, the shores of iron bone

drift in a void of fusion and diffusion,

headlong and planetary and alone.

The body lies at night like many countries

shaken by conflict, want, and the slaves' roar;

the frontiers wind through darkness without sentries

and recollection veins the flesh like ore.

Against the archipelagos of arms

and island-breast, the tides of sense move slowly,

and through the limbs compulsions and alarms

race with their messages.

This land is holy

where love drenches the nerves like fallen rain,

where lucid insight, strength, and panic start,

and where the cloud-banks of the darkened brain

sound with the muffled thunder of the heart.