David Craig
It’s a dark mimesis, Death. Seeing, he prods
with what seems a foot, asks for the Baptist, makes
him John the less too soon, this mime of God,
trumped spade. He imitates sleep, but never wakes.
Look! An absence, he brings the Man, a band
of funny Galileans—and more of the lost
in Capernaum, little ditzes, building on sand.
Who else but God would choose such layered dross?
As our sin, like Naphtale’s, starts to fall by degrees,
we Jungian shadows of death unclench our wills
so slowly you’d think that Jesus charged a fee!
What’s death when it dies on every southern sill?
Our Death is a shade whose song is not his own.
He takes the sun’s, leaves it, singing to bone.
David Craig has published nine collections of poetry and three works of fiction. He is also working on a play and a work in fantasy. His poetry has been widely published (200+) and anthologized. He holds M.F.A. and Ph. D. degrees from Bowling Green State University and teaches Creative Writing as a Professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He lives in Weirton, WV with his wife Linda and their three children, David Thomas, Jude Francis, and Bridget Jean.
