How Are the Dead Raised Up and with What Body Do They Come?
On Paros
An old woman stows her sewing in a wicker basket,
………hikes up her black dress
………………and leaps
over the burning wreath, where the light
………but not the flame catches her—
………………the white skin of her knees,
her gold molar. I watch her jump back
………and forth, smell
………………the sage to a rite
I know nothing about—I jabber to myself
………about elements and specific
………………gravities.
The body, I think, is mostly water,
………a bipedal jigger that prances
………………around til its cup is up.
*
It sounds like the clouds
………have lungs and are taking gulps
………………of breath.
From behind a hill, balloons surface
………until the sky fills with bodies
………………of shaped air, a flame
panting above each wicker basket.
………Stitched into silk panels
………………are names
in giant letters. Not one forgotten.
………The lost: huge, light,
………………rising.
Author’s Bio
James Wyshynski is a former editor of the Black Warrior Review. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Beloit Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Cortland Review, Connecticut River Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Nimrod, River Styx, Stoneboat Literary Journal, Terminus, and others. He’s been nominated for a number of Pushcart awards.
