WHAT HAPPENED AFTER

Photo from Unsplash.

Sitting along the banks
of the Sea he had walked on, 
plucking men like cod from the troubled waters, 
we wait for the runners
to return.

Side by side
silent as the last tendrils of night
slip from above, 
a fire at our feet. 
Resting in the time we have, 
both alive, again. 

I broke the silence with an I missed you, 
my tired eyes blinking in the soft smoke. 
Before you died, 
I missed you. 
When you left Nazareth
and me
behind for everywhere, everyone else. 

The people were calling. 
The God beside me grasps the ground, but
sand seeps from his pierced palm. 

The screams, 
yes, I heard them. 

I held their agony
in my ears and 
under my tongue like a steel bit. 

It was almost a miracle 
that I could hear their heart-rending
through their loneliness 
bearing down and choking 
the dregs of hope that makes us believe
that the cries might be heard. 

No one believed 
you were coming 
for them. 

I can imagine 
what their faces looked like when 
you stood among them – 
they must have swarmed 
like you were the hive and they
the workers – 
after you died
in that moment between the sun’s rebellion
and the soldier fainting. 

The silence overcame me. 
No screams, no cries, none
of the ache that I had carried
under my shoulder blades 
since that day I stepped back out 
into your arms in the sun. 

My guilt melted in that hollow echo
and I knew you were there
among the damaged and the damned
where maggots and flies 
are the only things to find life. 

I knew that silence was your presence,
your answer, 
to the desperation of my parents, 
my neighbor, my littlest sister
who I had to leave 
when you asked me to return.

Will you stop calling? 

Will you stop coming?