Lazarus

I thought the promise kept –
entered the hollow darkness
and I slept

but briefly, for I am recalled
hauled back
into these gasping grave-clothes and
the sounds, the scrabbling hands
and sudden light

and the emotions of women.  Though
I cannot count my questions
or my hopes, I know

the promise I must now embrace
(the way unchosen and the word unheard)
and turn my face to enter
my third death.

Where it began. Included in Lent Poems. Reprinted in Poems 3.