Imaginary Garden: An Afterlife
                for Danielle

The day is jade, but smells a little yellow,
like a pineapple, or a boy teetering on a bike,

and as church bells sound, a robin
strains to grip a centipede in its beak,

some wailing new life begins to unfurl
its makeshift wings, and I lay you down

between drops of rain, wanting nothing
but to string kisses around your collar

to cling to you like the sutures
that once dissolved into your scars.

There is a garden that only we know
how to get to—a man who sleeps

cloaked in my shadow sings there—
where all the dead I loved still waver

in a pond's reflection, where a koi breaks
the surface with its lidless eyes, and I promise

never to look away, not even to blink.

Copyright © 2010 Henry Israeli All rights reserved
from Praying to the Black Cat
Del Sol Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission