This resurrection is a hard study.
It tumbles me unprepared
so I trace its punctuation with my fingers,
tracking these scratches that clarify meaning:
The exclamation mark:
vertical and straight
like a divine finger,
like lightning down the sky,
like fabric ripped.
“It is finished!”
Exclamation point.
The full stop:
pin point of finality
like a bottomless hole in the page
into which one has fallen
and continues to fall through the pages
until she falls against grief
and stops
to look for a way out.
“And he laid him in a tomb
and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.”
Full stop.
The question mark:
a wandering line that ends at a full stop
like a meandering path in the wood–
a wood in which she is lost–
a path that rounds a bend and ends
at a hole in the ground,
a hole into which she has fallen
until she crashes against grief
and stops.
“Where have you taken The Lord I love?”
Question mark.
The quotation marks:
curved and short,
like two seeds poised in the sky.
“Peace to you.”
Quotation marks.
Then, again, the exclamation mark:
an ordinary man
standing vertical,
saying her name
with a voice familiar as friendship.
“My Lord and my God!”
Exclamation point.
