Noah Cain's "you were not lazarus"

you did not pull the tube

from your throat

drag your death sheet

through the ICU

interrupt our waiting

with a well-rested grin

——

I long

to share a shorelunch

to rub my finger along the edge of your

skull’s dime-sized dimple and believe

to feel your windblown smile,

the blue glow of lake and sky

to hold the elsewhere bodies

in which your organs burn

——

hybrid, switched

bodies don’t expire

we turn them off