Resuscitation of Dust

Before your mouth unstitched the quiet grey,
I moved through rooms like water through a sieve,
A phantom keeping daylight held at bay,
Forgetting that to breathe is not to live.
Then fell your fingers, sudden, fierce, and deep,
Against the sullen iron of my chest,
To strike a flint where marrow lay asleep
And drag the waking blood from hollow rest.

Now every tendon hums a scarlet thread;
The air tastes sharp, of pine and coming rain.
I drop the heavy mantle of the dead,
Baptized in warmth and beautiful, keen pain.
You look at me, and ruin turns to green—
The fiercest life this startled flesh has seen.