i. [From the exterior of the sarcophagus:]
                                        An Appeal to the Heart Not to Betray Its Owner—

Occulting light behind a veil of grief,
sea salt deceives eyes the past weeps to free
of water’s tyranny, of itself, night
without currency bankrupts second sight
every time blindness interrupts floods,
          tears dropped on account of what instructs us,

its chapped lips chafing hearts when kissing us,
this sensation we flee, coming in floods
filling up within us, what any sight
of reveals is a beast, a f(r)iend our grief
feeds, (t)his tongue a cry that cuts through the night
          like a knife through a radio once free,

that within us which needs to be, is free
insofar as we who swim solo night
leaves alone, its ebbing and flowing grief
slowing blame’s coming and going through us,
moving mountains without faith or foresight,
          swimming upstream through veins our own fears flood.

                    ii. [From the interior of the sarcophagus:]
                                        The Chapter of Not Dying a Second Time—

Stone houses terrible ordeals fill flood
closed mouths with solitude we let in, sight
itself eclipsing shadows willing us
ill, unreliable witnesses free
of blame, like all evangelists of grief,
          since we confine with ease any views night

by such epiphanies might be crushed, night
a fortress the cloaked forces of which grief
purchases, assassins whose daggers free
us from ever having to face these floods
of secrets enemies would drink from us,
          each monolith a stela in plain sight

hiding what wounds tongues might open to sight,
cavernous monuments echoing us
our antediluvian epics floods
battered and sought to ravage, tears one night
offered once caught, passage captives bought free
          of water’s tyranny only if grief

          could dwell in us, walling it up lest grief
          betray its promise, holding-off that night
          welling up again to surface pain’s floods.