What form after death will we take,
a gizmo birdie like William Butler Yeats?
I doubt it. How about a doorstop bunny
like the one we saw in Charleston, wanted
but didn’t have the money? Heavy enough
to be made of lead, paint rubbed off its head
by petting, no gust strong enough to slam
what it kept open. Nope, the rain comes
in mirages shredded, I don’t know where
any of us are headed, a furnace
of ectoplasmic metallurgy or compost pit
of worms working between hermaphroditic
orgies? Dear mustachioed Aunt Gloria who
gave me 20 bucks to blow on rubber snakes
and pinball, what became of you? Small stone
rubbed smaller by the wave’s surge? Birthday song
becomes a dirge, the soldier’s poem quaint words
on crumbling paper. Is that what you were
telling me when you didn’t know who?
I’d be the last to insist my mother
didn’t have conversations with my father
on the TV set after he was dead. Sometimes
I too hope to return, make some mischief
at our favorite restaurant, snuff some candles
and whisper how much I love you
if you’re still around. And Stan Rice, now just
7 or 8 books no one talks about but
when I reread still frighten me
into delight. Maybe all that we become
is rhyme of our limited time alive,
an echo loosening almost no snow,
no avalanche, just some puffs of white
like clouds that seem like nothing
until the pilot hits one.