The Washing of the Dead

I’m not so brave when it comes to you,
your dead lover writes on the steam-
covered bathroom mirror. You’re washing
your hair using his favorite beer; he’s been
visiting again at times like these: he returns,
writes cryptic messages you decipher after
he vanishes. Occasionally, he sits & watches
as you sit naked on the bed, brushing your hair—
long, dark, naturally curled & you remember
how he’d loosen your ponytail as he held
you after apple-picking: sweat
as you sit naked on the grime
long, dark, naturally cu his kisses
how he’d loosen your ponytail as lingering on your neck & collarbone
& when you step from the shower, he is standing
in front of the sink, drawing an exploding heart
using his trigger finger. He, like all of them,
arrives without trigger warnings
caution signs
red flags:
he haunts you in Eliot’s verses
Sartre’s existentialism
the mix of Spanish & your mother tongue
he used in letters
during late-night phone calls
at late-night hours
the first time
his eyes—cold blue & killer—
locked yours: a bitter January
afternoon when you brushed
your brown hair from your face
& held his glance a second
too long & now you hold it
as you hold your mother tongue
behind English:
for eternity—
for thine are
his kingdom
forever—
forever—
this man…

The Killer & The Lover are Eternally Mingled

& you will forever yearn for him in unshakeable ways:
in July you’ll carry his photo in your wallet to Dublin:
his blue-green eyes steel beneath his Army uniform cap
& you remember his accent as more Baltimore than Cork
& even now as you listen to “These Exiled Years:
you can recall the Jameson on his breath
him tugging you close:
you rebel—sacred to his heart—
& his drunken lullabies
lulling you to sleep
& in some obscure pub you’ll raise a pint
of Guinness to his photo & your desire
for the devil’s dance floor of his gaze
will lie low like Athenry’s fields
but you were never Mary—no
no
no wind ever cried your name—
you were—& always will be—Nika
Marusya
his hallowed icon
full of hutsul-lemko grace
fire
earth
his redemption from sin
the hours of his many deaths
& it will not be the first time
you’ve stepped from a plane in Dublin
& imagined him beside you
taking your hand
lugging your too-full carry-on bag
uttering A ghra mo chroi
& you’ll sip that Guinness slowly
as an Irishman takes a seat beside you
& you’ll pluck your dead lover’s photo
from its place on the table because you know
each trip to Ireland—so far yet so close
from your own mist-laden Carpathians—
is not the end
the last time
you will look up
& see your dead lover
blowing you a kiss

To Train Yourself in the Midst of Hell What Isn't Hell

--after Katie Farris

& your dead lover’s rolling a joint
as you sit in a half-empty bar,
sipping pints of Smithwick’s:

You never smoked when you were alive,
you tell him. You can’t light that
in here. He finishes rolling the joint
takes a slow slip of his pint
keeps his steel-blue eyes on your
swallows:

I started when I died. What will it do? Kill me?
& he lights the joint using his Bettie Page lighter—
the one you bought him several Christmases ago—
& he takes a draw
fishes in his fatigue jacket’s chest pocket.

You’ll probably not want to see this, he says
& you already know. Suspicions confirmed.
He—who taught you to think like a wolf:
Otherwise, mi querida, men will eat you
alive—& they have so why

should the latest (photographic) development surprise you?
You pluck the joint from his fingers & your hand shakes
& then a tear strikes its trail down your left cheek
& you inhale. You hold it. You spin the photograph
exhale
mutter Mon amour, you’ve been busy…
& your dead lover takes the joint
& you’re wiping your cheek
& you can’t feel your face for the booze & the joint
take one more sip of Smithwick’s
freeze as Motorhead takes the digital jukebox

& when you reach for his hand he’s disappeared
the photograph remains
you hear him whispering
On belay, my love.
On belay—

Nicole Yurcaba

The Washing of the Dead