The Dead Poem by Aria Ligi

I.
The dead are everywhere waiting for us to see them
They are in our overpasses and byways
The cervices where sidewalk meets road
They are patiently waiting
Rising from their coffins suits freshly pressed
Skin, a blue grey marbleized against bone

They are hidden in whispers
The kisses we give our children are coated in their hopes
And the clean white linen they slumber in
Some of the dead have guns
Armaments still strapped to their sides trigger cocked
The humming of the safety clicking metronomically

Some stand silently, their mouths open, hands folded
Yearning for the verbiage to flow, yet only air passes
Some are children
Their eyes hollow orbs holding soft smudged lovies
Feet shuffling passing so much time

The dead need us to see them
They are tired of standing
Their cries unheard, their needs unbidden
They wait for us to visit the vestiges of their lives
Those cold slabs of stone standing
Firm dominoes ushered by cedar and pine

II.
The dead need to be reminded that they are dead
They wander aimlessly attempting to return anew
Reconstructing familiar faces homages to their homes
The dead feel the low slow movements of our bodies
Exhaling and inhaling the heat that radiates outward
Signals to them softly, a gentle echo of light

The dead need us to warn them; the threads that hold them
Are tenuous ethereal hooks
Eschewing from navel to womb
They stand within the confines of their self-made cities
Reconstituting life
They have filtered these forms from imagination and memory

Commixing incessantly,
And yet caught amongst a tangle of auric netting
This world is too unkind for them to exist anymore
And the rules they knew do not apply
Our words and deeds play on their ears

Lilting daggers breaking invisible skin
The dead need us more than we know
More than we need them
The symbiosis consists of a fragile filmy glue
Feeding them unknowingly
Through grief and memory

Their yearnings persist dried cakey things brittle to the touch
Yet, spongy too
Their desire usurps ours
It is fathomless and blindly stupid
For its needs are infantile to an unknowing, dispassionate world.