Later

I'm trying to imagine Lazarus,
the day he walked out of the
tomb in his death robes,
stinking rotten and feeling
his lungs go back to work,
his heart, back to work,
the bloodrush and the
sweet daylight and that voice,
calling: his own name
hammering in his ears.

I'm thinking of him that night
after the party was over,
laying there with the wife
and the quilts piled up
and the fire gone to coals.

I bet she never held him
so tightly, so tenderly.

How could they have not
made love that night?
The body gone cold, now
flushed with living and
loving again.

Did she remember, that night,
just for a moment,
her husband without the breath,
remember him as corpse
as she stared into that face,
laced her fingers with his?
Did she shudder?
Did he notice, know her thoughts?

Afterwards in the long silence,
their breathing measured
and together again in that
late hour, he confessed:

"I don't want to sleep tonight."

"Tell me a story," she said.