“Camp Lazarus”

After dark, the sleeping arise.
Scout’s honor, we believed it

and nightly snuck out
from lights-out cabins

to search the sleepless:
fireflies, S.O.S.-ing petitions

to the dark, deaf sky;
racoons, drunk with delinquency;

but most of all the resurrected
tree toads, jumping beans among leaves

or leap-froggers across trails
we swore wound to eternity.

In our unprotected palms,
we scooped up each small

Prince of Warts,
as if to kiss him,

as if, for a second
in the chirping

chorus of night,
we clasped a miracle.