I Saw Flies

I saw flies

hoarding on the chapped, sandy bones

and beak, demorphing

into maggots who, crawling tail-first,

reconstruct

the flesh they consumed, and curl into

eggshells, borne away

by flies.

Vultures, too bear gifts

from afar; they cough up chunks of unrotting

meat to reverently

replace –

refitting one piece, then another to untear

into the surgeon’s puzzle of flesh.

Wind sweeps backward

through the desert, moistening

flesh and skin,

fastening

with unseen fingers: wind-parched, sun-bleached pilgrim feathers

that journeyed long to their source – fastening,

like a dandelion puff in reverse.

The sun saturates

their tones, until the eagle, glowing golden, rises

to its scaling feet, eyes

swelling to refill

sockets, and lunges at the skies.

I saw smoke

falling to where flames lick

ashes and birches charred to dust, leaving

heartwood, sapwood, bark, leaves;

And saw flames floating,

assembling dust into the

alignment of a rosebush,

and burning it alive,

precipitating petals

and thorns out of air.

We

Ran down to the churchyard,

Dug up the graves: father, grandmother, great-great aunt,

Sat down, and

We

Watched

As first to one here, then to another there:

            Bones out of dust.

                        Tendons out of dust.

                                    Flesh out of dust.

                                                Beating heart full of

                                                dust dissolved in rainwater,

                                                now running red.

I never saw

skin spread itself on faces

until the day I saw my great-great grandmother,

beautiful,

lying Eden-naked in her coffin,

breathing.

And yet

I forgot her

when I saw

Him.




February 2011