I know, I know. It’s weird. It’s speculative. It’s often meandering and not entirely straightforward or cohesive. But it’s my first attempt at writing a sestina, let alone a double sestina, and I make no apologies. For those unaware, a sestina is a kind of circular form of poetry, characterized by repeated end words in six stanzas of six lines along with a three-line envoi. Be warned: this one definitely requires careful reading.
WHIPPLE & WHIPPLE
The Whipple siblings own a store on Main,
Downtown Las Vegas, land of luck and loss.
The sign at the door reads: “Come, weary! Rise!”
The sister, Electa, is severe as the grave,
her brother, Zebulon, light of mood and weight.
They opened years ago on a rare rainy day.
Ironically, they are closed every Sunday,
When churches preach resurrection as the main.
The Whipples’ business has no line but a long wait,
the floorboards groaning with the constant shuffle of loss.
Those of us who have yet to bed down in the grave
Move like sleepwalkers in the mocking light of sunrise.
The adjacent bakery waits for bread to rise,
While the Whipples are finishing up for the day.
Zebulon polishes from a femur the dirt of the grave.
On a call, Electa gives directions to Main.
I try to remember who’ll be next, but I’m at a loss.
We can only yearn for nightfall, watch and wait.
Fate, like death, was a thing I now wish could wait.
It wasn’t the hospice flyer that caused me to rise
To the Whipples’ bait, nor the promise of restored loss,
But the urge of the nurse at shift of day.
Her refrain: “The Whipples on Main, The Whipples on Main.”
The singsong repetition made it seem far from grave.
At first, no one notices the grave,
Its primary aim to give the ritual weight,
to contrast bone when Zeb cuts power to the main.
It’s not necessary but they wait for moonrise.
Without the theatre, it’d be just another day.
Tallow, chalk, red wine--these they write off as loss.
I’ve long been impressed Electa suffers no loss
of dignity when she’s knee deep in the grave,
candlelight on her robes like the golden dawn of day.
Zeb wheels the bodies in, while next of kin await
The resurrection of spirits, nerves on the rise.
He’s always acted the Igor to Electa’s main.
Her hair a shock--Bride of Frankenstein’s mane.
The air burns electric, no energy lost.
In her element, the spark of flame surges in her eyes.
Zebulon tries and fails to look grave,
Straining to hoist the corpse’s deadweight.
His progress is lurching; yesterday was leg day.
For Electa to break character, it’d be a cold day.
Zeb’s only thinking about chowing down on some chow mein.
But now, ceremony. At her signal, he dumps the weight.
The rapture of resurrection they taunt in loss
Of mirth, in revering the mire of the grave.
The cadence of intonation drones as their voices rise.
Of what use to rise only to die and once more rise?
Newly raised, the revived revenant totters toward day.
I knew him pre-rise, knew how his many doubts did engrave
Soul scars as deep as winter tracks in his home state of Maine.
Too late for hope. The risen must already feel the loss.
To know the phoenix returns to ash, such is the pyre’s weight.
Soon in the still hold of this storeroom, the wait
Will terminate. It will be me in that rite, on the rise
And I’ll think: was it worth the loss--
To live a half-life and decay again one day?
To have swapped the phantom’s roam for this place on Main,
The to and fro with my lord, he of the bottomless grave? 1
Long gone the chance to alter flesh. My altar is the grave--
Wed to dirt, first seduced then suffocated by its weight.
Mine a vile lot, while a prophet’s portion double the main.2
Elisha died, was buried, and did not rise.
But at the touch of him, a dead man returned to day.3
Those bones now the boon of Vegas, Israel’s loss.
Does he feel the theft a loss?
The Whipples must have found him in a mid-east grave.
He rests in peace elsewhere, pending the Final Day.
Would he spare a dew-dripped finger while I wait? 4
They say summer’s a scorcher. The thermostat’s on the rise.
Oh, had I refused when they asked me to sign on the main!
I resist the grave with all my might and main,
Even knowing a delay of loss won’t halt my eventual rise 5.
Time ticks toward Judgment Day; I go mad with the wait.
1Job 1:7
22 Kings 2:9
32 Kings 13:20-22
4Luke 16:24
5John 5:28-29
Bone of Bones 