Rough Sleepers
Our dreams are ragged
Sold by the rag trade
Sweated over like a brown-edged book
Gilded with bodily imaginings
My fever dream under this shadowed roof
Is of a home I ate to pieces like a caterpillar eating its carapace
For we are not snails
And the angel stands with his flaming sword
Between dream and truth
A line thin as a needle
Parting my hair
Sleeping curs chase rabbits on their chains
But the greyhounds run after the machine
I understand nothing
Except that my rest is snatched
And the metal jaws close
Like the men at the end of a world
We were born far from our home
We are in exile at the beginning
Like the forgetful Christian soul
Wrapped in our flesh like bacon round the bones of Saint Mark
My dreams rip apart my fingertips
Until I recognize myself only fleetingly in mirrors
I am a rough sleeper now
For I have grown out of my home
For it is arid as summer now I have bowed my head
by Sophia Nugent-Siegal ©