Ron Fields

Visions of James


I saw his eyes open because a television show

told me they might; yet I know they were stitched

together, the corneas staring into the back of his head,

pale blue and glazed with death.

An old black hearse comes swooping

around the curves near my childhood home,

on its way to Uncle James' final resting place.

As it rounds a hill, the back flies open

and out spills his chestnut coffin, gleaming in the

moonlight, slowly opening to reveal his

resurrected secrets to me.

Other visions are of poker games in graveyards

that my grandpa's father used to speak of; dead friends

playing five card draw with jokers wild, dead wives

making lemonade and spreading gossip.

Uncle James might hold that joker in his hand, assuming

of course that I'm able to stuff him back in his coffin

and carry him up the hill.

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