All Hands Bury

All Hands Bury

Today I wear the clothes of a dead man
a boy really
not yet bones

No.

A splinter freshly pressed
into the dirt

There is something poisonous
about young bones
we hesitate
to bury them
there has been
some kind of
mistake


In our sadness
we grasp petty things:
what has mass
and can be held around you

This winter
we have broken the ground
too many times

still,
we learn nothing
from this attrition
if time does lay scripture on
new skin
we can not see it's mark
so the body is silent
and tells us nothing

we bury our own
before they may tell us
whom to pray to

when no other words
can come to mind
we gather between that
great silence
to call each other
'Lord'

They say
the name of god
must not touch the ground
must never touch the ground
we cannot take our eyes
from it
for even a moment
our holiness
is that fragile:
prone to
silent sacrifice
needs no Judas

I wrap my coat
tight against the shivering wind
handed to me
as we auctioned relics
from your closet

we press against
what is still warm
close the gaps
safety in numbers
there must be a math
to this absence
we can call this science
oncology
we can call it
exorcism
we have called ourselves
apostles

We have tattooed
new passages
line by line
Book 1:
Confessions:
we have forgotten
what divides
mantra and eulogy

In that confusion
we dig
until the dirt is cold around us
we do not stop
until we can see our breath
billow
condense
and fall into the ragged soil

today
another gash is complete
and we have carved
a suitable cradle
from the earth:
All hands
bury the dead

All mouths
form around
what few prayers
we have found in the night

We fill the grave
chanting breathless
whispering
dictating
Book 1:

Genesis.

Revelations.

Genesis.

Revelations.