By Jen Hunt
from the archives
Before dawn on the last day of the week
Before the dog barks and the garbage truck--
Tearing off bed sheets, the living dead arise.
They sleepwalk across their comfortable kitchens
Eyelids curving open like coin-purse slits
To receive the grayed rays of the pseudo-dawn compact fluorescents.
Their eyes turn downward, prayer-like, staring down the coffee.
As yet unsure what empty tombs have to do with inner rooms and human hearts.
they will church’s yearly crucifixion rewind
A sense dresses the pockets in the air
This resurrection Sunday
That of something freshly ground
Strong enough to dissolve graveclothes,
Tear curtains, and cream coats like the white of the sun
Go ahead and finish your cup so that it is like
The empty tomb.
Death is sleepy.
The grave yawns.
Her white tongue
Lolls there, unraveled and mute.
Arimtethea’s stoned rolled aside.
Sepulchre barren. Just as he said.
Smell and see.
The last word getting the last word.
Put your finger in the warm cinnamon roll; the hot cross bun
To check for sweetness in the cracks
Begging for water.
Beg for napkin,
Lick it off and run for cover.
Ask, with gravel throat on gravel road,
A word with someone.
Ask of Him: Are you only a visitor to morning that you do not know the things
That happen there in these days?
Are you not awake enough to see the crucifix in the coffee?
He replies.
