She Touches Me Dead

Her fingernails scrape
against the callous
balls of my feet,
searching for feeling
in an orchard of dead nerves.

She pinches
the ashy dead skin gloving my elbows;
ancient prognostications
of a leather retirement.

She cuts
my follicles drooping,
a deadly example of inanimation
delivering life,
like an unorganized stork.

She trims
my vine racing toenails,
so that her sleep will no longer
be pierced,
like a mischevious soldier's prank,
sounding reveille
at the dead of night.

The coffin we share
beckons your fleeting touch.