Wake

each to their waiting coffin as warm as morning coffee /
made of newspaper clippings, magazine articles and marked-up indexes /
all that was read that became flesh, bruising against the day’s corners /
the coffin folds up, pocket-size, always at the ready for short or long falls /
but mostly it leans against the wall behind the couch, creaking in the furnace draft /
until a frigid dawn when its door freezes open and the lines layered with iced breath/
break apart into random blocks at the feet, too far for hands