I liked listening to you today at lunch
as you talked about the dead,
the lucky dead you called them,
citing their freedom from rent and furniture,
no need for doorknobs, snow shovels,
or windows and a field beyond,
no more railway ticket in an inside pocket,
no more railway, no more tickets, no more pockets.
No more bee chasing you around the garden,
no more you chasing your hat around a corner,
no bright moon on the glimmering water,
no cool breast felt beneath an open robe.
More like an empty zone that souls traverse,
a vaporous place
at the end of a dark tunnel,
a region of silence except for
the occasional beating of wings—
and, I wanted to add
as the sun dazzled your lifted wineglass,
the sound of the newcomers weeping.