When he resurrected there was no dirt
to drive his death-cracked fingernails through,

no need to wash the already funeral-cleaned
body. But to push you from the earth,

taking the dust and clay of you in my hands,
isn't enough now. No amount of the booze you drank,

that shitty Baltimore swill, will make you walk
again, will untie the knot from your vertebrae

or loosen your tongue. Nothing will get you to answer.
The mind can be a morgue, and now I study

the scratches and ridges of you, my fingers worn
from the bone-braille. Soon, anything hidden

about death and motive, the reason Lazarus was saved
and you weren't, will be smoothed away.