One by one, old men take him by both wrists
\nand are unable to speak; women kiss his palms,
\nand those that can, murmur: awed,
\na little ashamed, as if queuing to the bereaved.
\nUnder the seething copper cauldron
\nof the Bethany sun, he sits in a nave
\nof frozen air, as if carved out of meteorite,
\nthe taut air humming.<\/p>\n
And all the while, his sisters clutch his shoulders
\n\u2014forming the triptych\u2014
\ntheir tears in the skin of their teeth
\nas he looks at the mourners
\nwith eyes like the veil torn in the temple
\nbefore an empty tabernacle.<\/p>\n
And, looking, there were some
\nwho would have buried him again
\nrather than face this difficult recovery.<\/p>\n
_________<\/span>*<\/p>\n Now that he\u2019s here Sometimes, I\u2019m allowed to glimpse him The seepage of slow, grey-black tears He is a shuffle on linoleum at midnight, Now he leads me to the threshold In the second life, One by one, old men take him by both wrists and are unable to speak; women kiss his palms, and those that can, murmur: awed, a little ashamed, as if queuing to the bereaved. Under the seething copper cauldron of the Bethany sun, he sits in a nave of frozen air, as if carved out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6Jypy-lazarus","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4888"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10282,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4888\/revisions\/10282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI don\u2019t know what to do with him.
\nAt table he touches things,
\nthen withdraws his hand.
\nAs if there are no words yet
\nand four days in the dark
\ncannot be shorthand for a lifetime.<\/p>\n
\nsitting, his back to the wall,
\nwatching a quiet will as it kindles
\nknitting like living bone.
\nDay after day, it drags his face to the sun:
\nthe oblique, crone winter sun
\nslowly unpicking the sutures,
\ndissolving the shrouds that grew over his eyes
\nall the time that he was dead.<\/p>\n
\nunder the skin
\nhas made his face translucent
\nand unbearable.
\nHe is water seeking its own level.
\nWhere failure is success,
\nand success is just a word
\nsealing the truth.
\nThat there was a defeat,
\nlong ago.<\/p>\n
\na child at my door at four in the morning
\nstill locked in a terrible dream.
\nUntil I listen, he won\u2019t let me go on.<\/p>\n
\nof the first death.
\nHe has crafted caverns to get here:
\ntunnelled up through the strata of years
\nunknown, unarmed, unsure of a welcome.
\nHe is rich in grief: caryatids of onyx,
\nbloodstone, arteries of black diamond
\nlike defined, faceted dark;
\nthe spectrum of deep light.<\/p>\n
\nhe will teach me how to live.<\/p>\nDavid McLoghlin<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"