The air twists about your waist

A snake that curls around your neck

You are the mouse, tiny and afraid

You drink its silver venom

Turning you to stone with toxic fear

Left for the icy claws of death

Under perverse black trees the moon shines like a ghoul

Bending light and shadow together as one

Thousands of ants are crawling over your feet

They climb the trees and tickle your hands

They bite your eyes and make you blind

The night is devoured by black ants

Suddenly a glimpse of light

Stunning pure and white and good

An angel on four gallant legs

Strong and steady and courageous

You crawl to your savor on hands and knees

Your body filthy against His glowing mane

The steed invites you onto His back

You clutch his mane with joy

And step out of the suffocating fog

With a click of the heels He carries you

The shadows retreat in fright

Trees seem to swing apart in his path

You are finally free

Something is twinkling in His eyes

You see it only in your final hour

Embraced by the empty eyes of Death

Your knuckles turn lifeless blue

Eternally frozen upon Death’s pearly mane

Blood shivers in your ankles and up your knees

Frozen in place like a skeleton clasping its boney neck

A rebel to imprison the final exhale in the throat

So that he may savor it long after death

Death sheds His pearly frock so that you may see

The false savor you called angel, sweet angel

Rancid flesh rips upon itself and falls

Atrophy wilts and turns it black

His eyes shrink leaving sockets naked and bare

A horrid shriek from His exposed jaw

The swamp quivers in resignation