Aunt Jane

Aunt Jane, of whom I dreamed the nights it thundered,

was dead at ninety, buried at a hundred.

We kept her corpse a decade, hid upstairs,

where it ate porridge, slept and said its prayers.

And every night before I went to bed

they took me in to worship with the dead.

Christ Lord, if I should die before I wake,

I pray thee Lord my body take.