asleep and dreaming it's 1944

asleep and the bird

has dug out her eye

asleep and her ankles

are round with the snow

asleep and the wind

cuts her hair with white scissors

time is a teardrop that slides down her chin

she has slept here before

                not again not again she is

                                croaking

the guns are still firing she is

buried in ashes and the wail

that goes out from the throat

of the sleeper is the sound

of a bird that has dug out her eye

is the sound of the wire

as it hums through her flesh

is the sound of the smoke 

             as it burns  as it burns 

                              as it burns