I found you sleeping, quite as still as death:
The moonlight on your nakedness shone blue
And cold. I could not sense your heart, your breath;
Yet knew you only slept—I hoped I knew,
And feared not knowing. I drew near, and read
Your pale testament, my legacy:
Long silences, dark nights, a colder bed,
Disordered sheets, disordered memory.
Of late we’d said that our estates were too
Intangible, uncertain ground—but then,
The land I longed to live upon was you.
You snored, and I was propertied again.
And as I moved to enter on your rest,
I paused—and felt the cancer in my breast.