The Resurrected

BY James Wright

Praying down the gulley,
Slowed by the rainy mire,
I will discern, across the void,
Two flies winding a fire,
And a long thick leaf
Hanging on another,
And a leg of root and leg
Of bough twining together.

That will be she forever:
Lightning bugs for eyes,
That see no farther in the dark
Than my own blind eyes;
A limp left for a cheek,
Cracking before it slips;
Tendril and twig for ankle bones,
And nothing at all for lips

But the unbodied mark
My mouth makes on the dark.