The day after my great-grandfather – Grandaddy-
died On rough, cottony sheets sure to kill him again When the veiled shroud comes over like diluted tar on the face and the breathing bodies can’t see anymore – they’re too warm to touch it, it’ll come away in their hands I tried to undo it I slept and hoped that was the secret to resurrection with my mouth stained stale saliva from barren, flat-lined day sleep till noon
and my eyes stained with the inky black of mother praying on the car ride praying on what she doesn’t know is dead Hidden between the folds of my stained bare mattress and I would bring it back to the morgue to anoint him
I slept on his old flannel shirt that smelt like nape sweat and sour labour under yolky summer months’ sun and tried to find the remnants of him on the lint My head lay in the Slow drool caul of grief and it was my halo : The Patron Saint of : Not visiting him in the hospital the night before he went flat, and blue with the monitor – well, not blue,
his dark leather skin turned grey Of : dreams where he shows me the wounds from his accident : where the head split like fruit I’m sure his hands cut at some point and the leg that fractured like dreams of summer when August rolled around and the leg of lamb I put on his plate at Christmas Of : My mother closed off like a specimen in formalin the colour of the hospital room at Princess Margaret and her silence sticking at the back of my throat like pus build-up in his infected leg It is nice to think of all this, and tuck it in the fingers of his corpse And fold them down forever Beep beep beep Goes the sound of some unseen death angel – noise in the absence of : a beating heart and I think to replace it with mine We stand around like The Last Supper, and he’s the sacrament, saviour, lamb I breathe in the down and put my face to it and hand the ageing thing over to my Nana to bake and broth I tried to keep it in my ribcage like a neonate, but it wouldn’t fit I still remember the great pain in my side as Adam blossoming the woman and rub at the sutures We play Bible school recital plays My bedroom is Lazarus’ dark tomb Where the frescoed ceiling is the white of his sclera half wombed by his unmoving lids because all the painters have died and their ash is hidden under his cooling bed where he hiccups at night with his tears and snot burning his face, But Jesus leaves him dead (he went out for a smoke and is currently unavailable) this time and re-animation hangs out of his reach in the corner of the flannel shirt pocket So, Lazarus sits and fears the blistering sun, if it comes, may explode his eyes like egg yolks.