In the mailbox today,

two new pearl-white book covers, one orange.

The first, a conclusive writing about Him.

The second, a photo montage of the final evening:

He sat for us in half-lotus on the veranda of His home.

Third, a personal account, written by his daughter

on His penultimate day. Warring

and emancipating in the art studio,

sealing the last word of His opus.

I flip these books over in my hands like playing cards.

I run my fingerprints along their slick, glossy covers.

What I feel is spite.

For the lie they seek to impose on my morning.

For the death these fool-books are trying to prove.

I stack them in a place of honor anyway, to the right of His feet

below the same photo I knelt before and gazed on

when they said He might be gone.

What do these books mean? I have no idea.

Works of fiction, decoration for my walls.

I see my Master every day.

He speaks in desert tongues

and never grants a sense of rest.

He opens the way; lays it bare.

There hasn’t been the slightest death.

I unclasp a chain at the base of my sweating neck.

In my palm, I spiral the mandala's silver center.

Watch it glint in sunlight.

I never asked for miracles.

For an unreal thing to prove the real.

But here it is.