The Spiritualist

Now I drink from your stillness that neither
Of us can disturb or escape. –Ted Hughes

My pen is also traveling miles from your
stillness, miles from your gutter body
corroding like small town art.

You are a museum piece now. People line
up and merely whisper in your presence,
your body, an inanimate charcoal drawing
as precise as a photograph.

My pen leans toward you like a compass,
like a John Donne conceit. We are not lovers,
but we lean toward one another, you in your
stillness, me in my hand motion of comfort.

I am pumping you full of word oxygen,
releasing the carbon dioxide.
It is a pathetic resuscitation attempt.
Like lying next to Annabel Lee on the shore,
it is a pathetic slumber.

Lazarus died twice anyway.