THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AFTER DEATH SOLVED

The day you were exhumed,
your mummy button eyes,
a bit crusty from the ride, blossomed
when the tears came. 
I held your hand as gold
swirled at the lagoon’s edge
and the cicadas whirred and whirred
like a little farm woman
that sharpened a knife in the distance.

Fish swam by our side, a lucid one
offered a questioning eye.
Gathered by his glinting kin,
he read my mind when he asked,
How does he exist above
the breathing line?
for surely you were dead.

You strode slowly, weak elbows bent,
the asphalt path embracing
your reverent pace
like an altar receives prayer.
I unwrapped your gauzy head,
and took the crook of your arm
to walk in procession,
for the gift of speaking to the perished
rarely happens outside a dream.

As if they wished their spines petted,
the wobble of fish rose
to mouth at the water’s surface,
 Nothing’s luckier than a date with the dead.
The ectoplasm chased above
our heads in a figure eight. 
The fish began to swim
in fluttering mandalas
flashing silver that wicked
the strands of our hair.
                                                                                                           
I recognized the tattered bandage
you put on your hand
last time I saw you.  It was slashed
as you closed thousands of books.
Then there was the wide one
you wrapped around your gut
the day she left. 
You acted as if it was a cummerbund but I knew
it held in the coleslaw of your guts.

Oddly I know this from losing
you.  Keep in mind I developed
my own lonely breakfast rite
all the years you were gone:
carving small Buddhas
out of green pears as I slugged
on tequila while warbling
in Sanskrit something about blessing
instead of punching.
Now I’m in a position
to love you, which I’m alerted to
by the rich irony bell bonging away.

I am its body, its tongue this idea
that vibrates through space and time.
It knells the birth of brainchildren,
many fathered by you.
They buzz around, their yellow flame
burning the edges of leaves and grasses
and speak with their liquid tongues of fire
like porridge does on a low flame.
We cup our apricot ears to hear
slender proclamations of gold
that glance off the tall swamp weeds.
The fish move as if the world was one wave,
spinning lights into the pond
as you cross from the dead
into the living.