Day of My Dead
       

so the cicadas drone louder
for the dead too
are busy

I believe in the communion
of the loving
and the bitterly forgiven

I saw you here
with these eyes
the eyes that swear

you’re no longer
your body — it’s true
your spirit didn’t rise

out of its gray
casing but its smoke
rose into orange

trees and clock-towers,
cellophane
and trash autographed —

briefly — by a parish of bone
now divided
on itself — all

depends on the body, though
it’s made to fail: still
the spirit remains,

stays as long as suffering
lasts, then seeps
away, but

while there it pays and pays
the surcharge
of pain, remains

like a dog, barking,
refusing to leave
its cold master:

and then you’re surprised
to see the dead?
though they often arrive

in grocery lines, in six frames
of film, in part
of a face that turns

away and turns almost
into the face
you love,

not the one
you go down
toward in dreams,

another, bafflingly
alive, enjoying
its time

which rides behind
the present like a boat
its wave;

we close the eyes
of the dead
because they open again,

staring for us
up in the sky-filled instant,
eyes brimming

with rain, all that remains
from the time
of our fine passing

Copyright © 2010 Mark Conway All rights reserved
from Dreaming Man, Face Down
Dream Horse Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission