When I gather your bones
and reconstruct you
in my heart, hands of glue
and limbs of paper scaffold,

it is laughter I am chasing,
the tight-ribbed boom you
hammered—nail of joy
through the air. I could hear

from my little bed, knew
your acolytes lingered,
puffing pipes of a new
age. When they left, you

chortled for years at nothing
but your jokes on rerun,
your sermons that looped, limped
on sallow legs blotched

with bauxite and bandage, white
specks in corners of the mouth.
I go back and rebuild
you till the baritone rings—

when I answer, you are gone.