The Ghost of Heaven

Sleep to sleep through thirty years of night, a child herself with child, for whom we searched through here, or there, amidst bones still sleeved and trousered, a spine picked clean, a paint can, a skull with hair Sewn into the hem of memory: Fire. God of Abraham,God of Isaac,God of Jacob, God not of philosophers or scholars. God not of poets. Night to night: child walking toward me through burning maize over the clean bones of those whose flesh was lifted by zopilotes into heaven. So that is how we ascend! In the clawed feet of fallen angels. To be assembled again in the work rooms of clouds. She rose from where they found her lying not far from a water urn, leaving herself behind on the ground where they found her, holding her arms before her as if she were asleep. That is how she appears to me: a ghost in heaven. Carrying her arms in her arms. Blue smoke from corn cribs, flap of wings. On the walls of the city streets a plague of initials. Walking through a fire-lit river to a burning house: dead Singer sewing machine and piece of dress. Outside a cashew tree wept blackened cashews over lamina. Outside paper fireflies rose to the stars. Bring penicillin if you can, surgical tape, a whetstone, mosquito repellent but not the aerosol kind. Especially bring a syringe for sucking phlegm, a knife, wooden sticks, a surgical clamp, and plastic bags. You will need a bottle of cloud for anesthesia. Like the flight of a crane through colorless dreams. When a leech opens your flesh it leaves a small volcano. Always pour turpentine over your hair before going to sleep. Such experiences as these are forgotten before memory intrudes. The girl was found (don’t say this) with a man’s severed head stuffed into her where a child would have been. No one knew who the man was. Another of the dead. So they had not, after all, killed a pregnant girl. This was a relief to them. That sound in the brush? A settling of wind in sorghum. If they capture you, talk. Talk. Please yes. You heard me right the first time. You will be asked who you are. Eventually, we are all asked who we are. All who come All who come into the world All who come into the world are sent. Open your curtain of spirit.