Picture of Jeremy ZungJeremy Zung

University of Toronto

Class of 2016


Taut sheets as cotton fetters

In curtained cloister bare

Enshroud the shrivelled limbs

Whose fingers flex in fetal curl

‘Round liquid sleep.

Masked messenger in priestly white,

Hath divined th’encircling doom?

My fallen airways, Medusa’s veins spell

Agonies untold.

 

Lips pursed, throat tight, and orbits sunk,

You scrabble to set me free

Of serpent tubes and catheter lines

Ensnaring, strangling me.

 

But stenotic hours, austerities

Have hemmed you in too far.

I fault you not, dear Hermes, but quick–

Prescribe your closing mercy:

 

The noose which crowns your chiselled neck can’t

Auscultate mute screams.

I pray: release these sesame pupils to

Spelunk Elysian dreams.