Totem

When the dead started
their long way towards our houses
no one of us woke up.
We all had a clear conscience.
We slept tight. We slept on.

Later when we saw them
the piled-up corpses
we crept deeper in our easy-chairs. Blood
everywhere but the screen remained white.
That's how it was. We had a clear conscience
and a film-show lasts less
than an hour and a half.

Then here and there a soul appeared
from in between the gloomy houses,
they painted the roofs in red,
red as blood also the walls.

Until one of the houses became
a walking totem.
We inside of it, you and I,
warming each other
shivering in animal hides.