The Man Who Died (Miracle Birth #12)

with text from D. H. Lawrence’s novella of the same name

If there are destinies of splendour 
after all our doom of littleness 
and meanness and pain,
I can’t see them.

I have to guess that the man 
who wrote those words
had no more of heaven in him 
than you,
save that he was a mystic
and gave himself each morning 
to a sun
that rose in his brain only.

And yes, his clotted lungs 
and petty feuds suggest
he too examined the ruins 
in his morning toilet
with fever and trembling, 
wondering what glory 
could coexist there,
but that there was room also 
for the nearness of God
to orgasm,
a desert to feed a single tree.

If you think like I think
that what’s relatable about people 
is failure,




I have a grave to dig up for us. 
I’ll let you know if my spade 
bites bone or a bright transistor
singing hymns to the gilded roots.

Read more from Issue 17.1.