and beneath it – all that crankling

bells and whistlers no one hears

an internal world shut out

from curious inquisitive minds wanting

to ponder: a sting ray decides a best option

with barbs and all, the fisherman

bled out, poisoned, chest collapsing

he already carried sickness.

the autopsy did not rule out foul play,

some said it was his dying wish to find

the fishes of fishes, others said he had already

long been absent, the fisherman himself

wrapped the weeds tightly around his flesh,

pale skin refusing to tell lies

that could be pried out, analyzed, reinterpreted,

he had always been a simply man, it’s the

meanings that gets life hard. and the cold

body preferred to bathe in stillness. it was

a lot more quiet, than the arguments brought

forth by family disputes on what actually happened

or sudden friends who had never visited or once inquired

till his departure.

how frightening. how dismal. how impenetrable

the bones that do not decompose,

too much preservatives, they called it the body

that never rots, with tourist still making comments

on objective reality. there was something odd with

that one – more ruses, more probes, more

gestures when the days that passed, it seemed his body

got lighter, his face took on a more natural color,

some said his body moved when it was a full moon.

i heard the wolves howling, they lined up one by one

next to that dead-living body, making neither sound

nor breath and yet it seemed: a chill in the bones,

many felt it too, those villagers that lived nearby,

like a speech that only bones understood –

sometimes it is illogical in every way, the superstition,

“it’s backwards” and the wolves when they left the scene,

i saw them take flight to the moon.

the villagers who heard, the ones that were more keen

to the whispers, felt deep within,

their faces too got more humane, more alive,

like something inside was igniting,

could not be explained: such madness isn’t it?

and yet rationality has barely scratched

the surface of miracles, the unexplained, the resurrection,

we only live as if

we actually know.