The Afterlife

We were told Orpheus had been there
but when we arrived there were only
the oranges and the apples and the pomegranates
laid to rest under fluorescent and mirrors
with bags of potatoes and some spilling out onto
the floor and asparagus next to the bell peppers

and in the aisles, there were aisles, the dead
strolled with their goods in front of them in metal
cages on wheels and lingered in the frozen food
section or deciding what kind of pasta (fussili or…),
the best tomatoes, there are choices.

Do you want a name brand toothpaste
or can you make do with a generic? We were told
Orpheus would be there, seeking Eurydice again.
But these sorts of tales reach the listener with
a certain amount of inaccuracy and some allowances

should be made for tragedy plus time.

There comes a place in the poem
where poet writes/has written you.

You could be the reader,
you could be the universal you,
you could be the writing writing to herself,
or maybe you are the beloved,
that the poet has a face for
a voice a small
a past, a hope

this beloved makes me as the reader
take notice

you has been asked to be like
or compared to
the rain.

You, the reader, are introduced
to someone’s you,
and you wonder how many times
this you has been brought to the page

stapled there, you.

You listen you

you please

plaintive

often you is no longer capable of answering
and then it is even more urgent to put you
there, what was it that made you, you?

God, can you ever find another you, like you?

And poetry is answering with a big no
but also with a little tiny yes

because yous keep being born
and finding each other
and then leaving each other
again
and in poetry you is not so fixed
that your you and hers might not
just be the same thing

and the sound finally is important too
you comes out of the circle of your lips,
you is a single breath,
and you takes some little bit of holding
back in order to be said.