Resurrection Fern

On ghostly days
return to the woods,
unlit space, the sound of rot

like soil and skin melding,
like the slosh
of creek water in his pail

as a boy walks the path home.
It takes one touch,
one trace of water across the lip of a leaf

to reenter a world.
The skeleton regains its map
of flesh and green.

Each love sprouts like this.
You thought yourself a corpse
at the well bottom

waiting for light to unravel
down into your arms.
But it is not light we need,

only the shadow of a body over our own,
a drop of spit into the throat
and we are the ones who unfurl.

Because we are the ones
who in darkness make shine.
Because when I say body, I mean

a bone-gray rock, cracked and bleeding
crystals into the air.
Because what good is light without hands

to make it. The indigo owl rests
on night's shoulder,
coughs up a silver cluster of mice.

The earth does the same with morning.
You thought yourself hollow
but our blood is bright as algae

blooming over the blackest pond.
In rain you will rise like a king.
You must relive your death

for one hundred years.
Each time you die
you will be saved.

Copyright © 2009 Sara Johnson All rights reserved
from Iron Horse Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission