Jake's Flea Market

the status of the royal blood of rome
that of professor of divinity at wittenberg
of pastor at the stadtkircke st marien

pray   pray that i leave the dignity of all i’ve been
on the corpse when i depart
this body in the chamber where i’ve lived

lived for so long that everyone here calls it
horatio’s chamber   when i

exit from this body in the bed
where i’ve so often slept
that everyone here calls it horatio’s bed

there is a nobility in old
in bald   in hair thinned and silvered
at the temples   an elegance

in wrinkles 
and in skin diluted and faded and bruised

there is a virtue in slacked flesh
and in bones brittled

in aches and in stiffened   pray
pray that i abandon   this refinement
in the night i go out between the sleep
and that deeper sleep from where i’ll wake as dust

but pray against me
against the morning you come
to wake my embarrassment that my nightgown is soiled
my bed soaked with urine down to the lowest feather

that i’ve failed myself

and you leave me to return
from the stable with the wheelbarrow

that age comes   near it comes so near
pray against me