for j.d.
You died first. It was an experiment.
Something about volcanoes.
How much arsenic we could breathe.
I watched your eyes
through a slatted barrier, watched them
go flat, watched your face
calcify. It was that moment, my moaned
no, my trying to spark your eyes
back to life, that jump-started my own
faltering heart. My disproportionate joy,
when you walked into my hospital room,
woke me up. No one knew,
even my husband as he slept, unsuspecting,
and, in the dream, cradled my body in its nest
of wires, how glad I was to see you again.
No one knew who you really were: father and brother
I can’t resurrect, no matter how often
I try to re-enter the dream.
Candace Black teaches creative writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She is the author of three collections of poems: The Volunteer, Casa Marina, and Whereabouts. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in several journals, including Pinyon, Great River Review, Superstition Review, Turnrow, and War, Literature & the Arts.