The stone fist of his heart (Mary Karr)

From the far star points of his pinned extremities,

cold inched in – black ice and squid ink –

till the hung flesh was empty.

Lonely in that void even for pain,

he missed his splintered feet,

the human stare buried in his face.

He ached for two hands made of meat

he could reach to the end of.

In the corpse’s core, the stone fist

of his heart began to bang

on the stiff chest’s door, and breath spilled

back into that battered shape.  Now

           

it’s your limbs he comes to fill, as warm water

shatters at birth, rivering every way.

--Mary Karr, 

Descending Theology:  The Resurrection

(To see the complete sculpture, click on the image below.)

Source of images:  Veiled Christ, San Severo Chapel Museum, Naples, Italy, https://fatherjerabek.com/2014/04/19/christ-in-the-tomb/