Necromantic Mummy Ode.

I may not take your body in at once. They cart it off piecemeal and douse your charms With paraffin & camphor, enresined gum; Coy nitre to drip beneath the sockets of your arms, To dip the tessellated layers coiling Across the thighs, curling onion-linen Hidden from the light. You are my work, My dry business. I love you only In your element; they want more, Bearing their mosaic, academic Passion with full stops, all capitals On long yellow slips. They would have you Starched with washes, stiffened with acrid fumes And sorted onto index cards; their bent To recompose, not mollify the face. Their ministrations obviate decay: Yet I would crack such brittle caution, gladly Sending you to dust with one embrace.