The Last Passenger

In the cave, the grave
you lie, acquainting yourself
with linen, with cold stone, with cobwebs
with dark, dusty silence, with grief
the bedfellows of the dead.
You must know them, greet them,
converse and commune,
weighing the living, the dead, and the not yet
with equal regard, picking them out of the stars
one by one:

Dearest Adam, dearest Naomi, dearest Simon Peter and Mary,
Dearest Paul, Priscilla, dearest Augustine and Monica
Dear thousand souls, to those in Rome, Byzantium, and Asia,
Grace and peace be with you all.

Such I imagine you, holding each of us
in the hallow of your thoughts,
until you come to me.
Was there a pause, a look of pity or recognition,
a remembrance of our days by the lake,
by the bedside, lost in the desert city–
Will your lips form the syllables of my name,
as lips that had learned the shape and
pattern of those sounds?
I would ask for no healing,
But only that you would run your hands
over the scars of my heart
as one not unfamiliar with them.
Remember me in Your kingdom, I said.
Or maybe I only wept.
Or maybe only your shadow passed over me,
and I mistook you for the grocer,
the delivery boy, the gardener,
the shadow of a cloud.
I was in a terrible hurry that day,

there was the phishing scam, I had misplaced my insurance,
my bread had expired, my loans unpaid
I was almost certainly coming down with something,
and my lazy students were “feeling under the weather.”
You saw all my living, as you descended
into the shadowy place where I make my bed,
where I was sleeping at the midnight hour,
where I fled.

Do not remember me! Or rather, do not listen!
My tongue is twisted,
I say the exact opposite of what I mean!
Rabboni, let me cling to You
Swallow me up and carry me out in Your belly
For I am the last citizen of Hell
But when You walk out, it shall be empty.

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