“A man is sleeping on a bench in front of the sanatorium

he’s been waiting for his folks like manna from heaven

white and coiled up

from the valley he seems to me

a lamb biting into the green wood

I could go near him, call him

jolt him, hug him

but he took everyone out of space

and time

he took himself out first

like a leg rotting with gangrene

between two drops of Nouleptil

no human twitch

if all his folks should come now

and sit down in circle as for initiation

they would only find his smile

in an endless sleep,

the yellow smile, the flower of the green wood.”