MUMMIFY

If you remember the shark's tooth you gave me,

I will hang it round the throat of my first-born baby

And the weight of the chain on his shoulders

Will hang heavier each day that he gets older

So I carry my own weight in plaster,

Sleep with my lips wrapped round a coat hanger

We were only as good as a picture

Fluttering, burning, staining my fingers

And I tried to mummify the silence in the room with you

I lived eighty-six hours underground

Though I didn't help to dig the tunnel

I used the time to carve four others

Where the tongue and the gum and the bone all huddle

And I tried to mummify the silence in the room with you

You tried to mummify the silence in the room with me

Purple flares and no shoes

In a muddle in the middle of February

I wrapped my body in tape

I made my face into a loaf of bread

And I tried to mummify the silence in the room with you

You tried to mummify the silence in the room with me

etc