AfterLife

AfterLife

Re: the resurrection of the body and
the life everlasting there is the small
matter of posthumous living, ex-habited,

the state of being risen, born from the
charcoal fertility of burnt stubble, a ghost
exhibited. Despite a belief in an afterlife

of flesh-and-blood, it seems Israeli
soldiers, meek like snakes lay down
their skins for their fellows and in death

are flayed for their precious coats. Peeled
clean by colleagues, by friends, their shells
hang in great shivers of pink, a catwalk

of uncanny wet-suits, suspended: such is
the need for grafts and patches, to such
extent the damage, the conflagration which

still rages, that it is written into the small
print; it goes with the territory. So, in this
afterlife, (which, as we never dreamt of the

deaths, could not be imagined), I am skinless
and you are skinless. We have doffed the layer
of cream, had it boiled away in barbecues of

bad luck, of fate, scorched by destiny into a map
of bruises and stains and in the blessed peaceful
blankness of this page we can hardly believe the

silence; a silence as white as scar-tissue, a stillness
in which we can hear ourselves embrace, offer each
other sticking-plasters; two hands cupping a face.