Your sleep wouldn’t be disturbed by:
the rustle of the notorious ghosts,
heavy steps down the hall,
stops between rises and falls.
As well as the chess floor
giving way beneath your feet, an aspen stake,
an endless spiral staircase,
an off-key note that gets you,
a cold bony hand in your bosom,
a stranger's head on your neck, snakes, mosquitoes,
long tunnels, catalepsy,
travels outside the body,
a cricket, an annoying fly,
another annoying off-key note.
The earth's swampiness is what doesn't exist,
the firmness of heaven is what does,
the two of them making a single
whole of what is death.