Smoke rose impatiently
through pearly blossoms,
like the prayers of the saints,
and the tonic of flowers
begged him to overthrow
darker persuasions.
From a faded tulip chair, he
looked up at me and said,
“Why seek ye the living among the dead?”
He inhaled the light and fragrant day, and, sitting back, rested mute bones against impossibility.
The bewildering quiet
brought unfathomed grief.
Pilate, in a chamber alone,
hands in loose tunic pockets,
mulled his wife’s day-old dream
as stale wine.
Exhausted by treason,
he granting a watch
with absent eyes.
Then the Arimthean, silenced by
duplicitous council,
despised the Death he could not stop,
and plotted benevolent revenge.
Mary, raging against her own blind instinct,
denied the Master’s
sudden disappearance
While two angels,
on the outskirts of reason,
waited for the sun to rise.
Michael James Fitzgerald
for Cristi
Past winters, she was
a solitary stick,
heckled by wind
and a jumble of
unwelcome weather.
But she bewildered the
misguided opposition
(and even herself) with
a dazzling testament
to a hidden & beautifully
unapparent life.
Michael James Fitzgerald
Tired leaves and
tarnished grass,
Geese mourning
the sun,
The tide of summer
slipping into night.
When will I see your
perfect light again?
How can I forget your
inescapable bones?
Michael James Fitzgerald
Along a keen edge
of dark and light
I ran an unsuspecting
finger
and left behind a
sunset drop
in memory of this
forgotten world,
its atomic trouble,
double-barreled blame,
shark-toothed schoolyard terror,
from which I flee
like an invisible child
flying home
one last time.
Michael James Fitzgerald
Heaven saved my childhood tears—
tucked them all safely into the firmament—
mild, fierce, unwelcome
confessions of the heart.
Today, She could bear them
no longer.
Michael James Fitzgerald
She sleepwalks
waist high through
prairie wide light,
then deeper &
deeper plows
infinite night
til she captures
all stars & every
child goes free,
and her heart
comes home to
the Immaculate Tree.
Michael James Fitzgerald
See 1 Nephi 11:21–22
