Oh, the past, you used to say,
forget it

but I did not,
my art, re-fleshing words

like some sort of Jesus
doing pop-up resurrections:

Rise, take up thy bed
and stalk.

And the odor of re-vivification—
Lazarus slouching from the tomb

smelling
like a corpse flower.

Some say I bathe my darlings
to scrub the rot away

others, to make the pain
stay forever.