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Rot Beneath My Hands
(From the Pen of Thomas Miller – 1960s Corpse Collection – Death Poems from the Afterlife)
I laid him down in shallow dirt,
his lips still twisted, caked in hurt.
The rain had whispered, soft and low,
"Bury him deep where none will know."
His breath was gone, his body slack,
his eyes rolled white, no turning back.
A brother’s hands, a killer’s deed,
a sin that rots, a wound that bleeds.
The moonlight watched, a silver snare,
as I dug deep with hollow stare.
Each shovel’s crack, a guilty moan,
the earth, it drank him, took its own.
No coffin built, no words were read,
just broken limbs on sodden bed.
His jaw unhinged in frozen scream,
a haunting sound inside my dream.
I thought it done, the secret sealed,
but death does not stay in the field.
The earth swells up, the roots twist tight,
his fingers claw the edge of night.
I hear him whisper in the rain,
a lullaby of rot and pain.
His voice, like maggots in my brain:
"Brother, why did you remain?"
The house now groans beneath my weight,
his shadow lingers at the gate.
His hands, his breath, his hollow chest,
press cold and heavy on my breast.
I wake at night, the room is thin,
the sheets pulled back, the dark crawls in.
And standing there, where none should be,
his corpse-mouth grins—he's come for me.
"Bury me deep, you should have known,
but I am blood, and blood comes home."