In the deepest folds and creases
Of my onyx cloak
I, a reaper grim, hide all my favorite souls
Safe-kept from the world
Above and below so neither torture
Nor tediousness
Will touch them evermore.

Please, they scream, distorted faces
Of adults and children,
Paupers, princelings, priests
Emerging from my tattered pockets.
Please, let us rest.

I, reliquary of draped fabric
Woven from the etherous darkness behind stars,
A skeleton cradling precious shards
Of lives lost within my ribcage.
Here, the world can neither touch
Nor tarnish them
With its bruising grip,
Its festering filth.

Please, my beloved souls beg.
Please, let us go.

I hum the lipless lullaby of limbo
And push them gently
Back into my cloak of bleak eternity.
I replant their seeds into my soil,
Sowing that, which I am unwilling
To reap.