The Eaten Dead

You're dead now, carried away in a dark vehicle.

The earth, scent-retaining, fertile, rank & not reticent

has bed you.

Things vanish that I thought would last forever.

Your morning eyes and Da Vinci smile exist

only within me.

In memory, I probe the scars of love's body

for proofs like the doubting Galilean once

fingered his Lord.

I should have dined on you like the people who eat

their dead, believing it better to be inside a friend

than in the cold earth.