Taphephobia

Saint Teresa's
waxed eyes
woke at her first funeral.

So in the Leichenhäuser
of Victorian Munich
the unsure dead
waiting for days,

growing hair,
groaning gases,
crossing arms
when the lid opens.

But also dead uncles, spotted
near fires or murrains,
stapled in the coffin
with steel stakes.

The watchers in that Dead House, too,
and the listeners
for the bell strung to a finger.

So the later phone,
the Houdini hoax
or Mary B. Eddy.
The window in the vault.

Fear of early burial.
Fear of death.
And fear of the Lazarus Sign,
the locked dead,

The Great Majority
judging, ringing back,
blackmailing, demanding treats.