Poem: "Halfway to Eternity"

This poem came from the October 5, 2010 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired and sponsored by alycewilson.  Usually vampires are depicted as transformed humans; the prompt here asked for vampires that came from somewhere else. 

What they promise you,
whispering in the silky night
before they prick your throat
with their long white fangs,
is that you will live forever.

What they hide from you,
until your body's truth
drowns out their sweet lies,
is that vampires can only
stop Death, not Time.

Perhaps it is not entirely
their fault -- they are visitors
in this dimension, and Entropy
is a stranger to them. They forget
what it can do to natives here.

What you teach to them,
slowly, painfully, over centuries,
as your body withers to leather
is that eternal life is useless
without eternal youth.