The first death
was a hawk dive—
a fever dream.
The second
is biding its time
like a retired general
fishing. This time I am
wide awake. I hear
the chief priests
have hired someone. I know
I should be more grateful.
But when the stench
finally cleared and my eyes
could bear the searing sun
and my skin
stopped tearing like wet paper
at every touch, death
was still there, a fly
just out of reach, learning
our routine, marking
every hour. In the beginning
Mary was kind and
attentive, the way one is
with a beloved
brother home from the
war, fully limbed but
off somehow, drinking more,
though no one will say it. Shouldn’t I
be grateful? He called
my name—I heard it
as if from under water—
Laa…zaa…ruus…
but the creature
who stumbled out of that tomb,
blind and gasping and doomed,
was not Lazarus. He was—I am
“the one whom Jesus raised.”
Mary fends them off
as best she can,
the hangers on, the miracle-
seekers, but they steal
hungry glances
and their movements
are awkward with the pretense
of respect. Tell us again,
they want to say, how you staggered
from that stinking cave, tearing
at your bindings, groping
toward the light. But I am
not yet a story
with a happy ending.
The wolf lurks
around every blessed
tree. Maybe
next time it will be
a hired hand. Or my own heart
giving way. Maybe
they will hang
me too. Who will save me
from this surviving?
I am
bottled
bro-
ken s-
wept into
a pile
(he is gone)