VAMPIRE SESTINA
I wait here at the boundaries of
dream,
all shadow-wrapped. The dark tastes
of night,
so cold and crisp, and I wait for
my love.
The moon has bleached the color from
her stone.
She'll come, and then we'll stalk
this pretty world
alive to darkness and the tang of
blood.
It is a lonely game, the quest for
blood,
but still, a body's got the right
to dream
and I'd not give it up for all the
world.
The moon has leached the darkness
from the night.
I stand in shadows, staring at her
stone:
Undead, my lover...O, undead
my love?
I dreamt you while I slept today
and love
meant more to me than life-meant
more than blood.
The sunlight sought me, deep beneath
my stone,
more dead than any corpse but still
a-dream
until I woke as vapor into night
and sunset forced me out into the
world.
For many centuries I've walked the
world
dispensing something that resembled
love-
a stolen kiss, then back into the
night
contented by the life and by the
blood.
And come the morning I was just a
dream,
cold body chilling underneath a stone.
I said I would not hurt you. Am I
stone
to leave you prey to time and to
the world?
I offered you a truth beyond your
dreams
while all you had to offer
was your love.
I told you not to worry and that
the blood
tastes sweeter on the wing at late at
night.
Sometimes my lovers rise to walk
the night...
Sometimes they lie, cold corpse beneath
a stone,
and never know the joys of bed and
blood,
of walking through the shadows of
the world;
instead they rot to maggots. O my
love
they whispered you had risen, in
my dream.
I've waited by your stone for half
the night
but you won't leave your dream to
hunt for blood.
Good night, my love, I offered you
the world.
-Neil Gaiman
