Break the sod and shovel through the wormy loam

Crack the casket lid and take my lover home

Cut away the flesh and sinew, hack the bone

Slap the slab and pierce the jigsaw till it's sewn

*

Search the hallowed ground, a stone, a memory

Then dig for death, a corpse of one once dear to me 

Fill the barrow, wheel away by raven night 

Hobble down the cobbled road towards the light

*

Vaulted dank laboratory, black with bloody

Stains and pale remains of loved ones I shall study

Piece by bitter piece. Regret I hose away

Then labour long to resurrect a bygone day

*

Jane's green orbs once danced upon my firm young skin

Silvia's tongue and flashing teeth I stitch within

Amanda's sweet lips - fit to raise the dead; Anne's hair

Completes the pillowed head; I leave it sleeping there

*

Such alabaster breasts were May's; whose suckled teats

Were these? And here, so taut, the belly of my teacher. 

Reaching for me, Judith's skilful teasing hands

Dear Lorna's lissome legs await my harsh demands

*

Wait! This bungled bag of bones entails the beat

Of organs... Becky's brain and Martha's heart replete

With lights and larynx; Stella's stomach for affairs,

Eschewing spleen and brewing bile oft biding there

*

A spark! A flash! Beneath the sheet the monster wakes

'Alive! God, It's alive!' I cry. The body shakes

And rises, bares its perfect torso. Scars are healed!

In heaven's name! I made an angel, now revealed

*

In all her naked glory; now she bids me lie

And taste her perfect flesh. Such wonders I espy!

My loves, compounded into one immortal creature

Each donating but a single perfect feature

*

Break the silence, chase the shade across the wastes

Crack my eyes and see the icy truth and taste

Her lips squeezed dry by tired familiarity

Thank God, tonight my lovers lived inside of me

*