Cold Narrow Bed

Cold Narrow Bed

She is young, she is fair, she is almost sixteen.
She has long golden hair and her eyes are pale green.
I am twenty years old then, still steady and strong,
with a life full of promise, a life without wrong.

She is all I will think of, and all I will dream
in the night when the banshee arises to scream,
when Old Nick lights the fire that burns in my head,
when those bones of desire will rattle my bed.

She is young, she is fair, she is almost sixteen.
She lives free without care, with no chaff left to glean.
I am thirty years old then, and filled with disdain
for a life without glory, a life without pain.

She is all I can think of, and all I can see
in the night when my angry self-pity sets free
the tormented delusions that fetter my dread
to the damp caul surrounding my cold narrow bed.

She is young, she is fair, she is almost sixteen.
She walks slow with the flair of a woman between.
I am too old for counting, too old to be wed
to the wraith who is haunting my merciless bed.