Earthworm 

From here, life seems like background noise,
speech a fossil from a disobedient time, 
cleanliness a bed for the frail and aging. 
And light a lazy animal that often stops to rest— 
it has no curiosity, it never travels underground. 
Without skeleton, like the night, 
without colour, like tanned water, 
its form seems like a first draft. 
Legs would be jail, ears too much to feed,
a resinous responsibility. 
Not sun, not moon, not time’s gossip,
but the faded dark gives it rhythm,
as if it were soil’s translucent twin. 
Like a straw it ferries soil, 
secreting it as roundlets, 
as if they were the earth’s fleece. 
The soil’s saint, 
it moves as if life were as delicate as a tremble, 
so that when severed into pieces,
it dies, almost apologetic for being alive,
hinting that not all parts of us die at the same time.