Afterlife

That line is paper thin,
She told me.
I can hear the footsteps
Even when they fly—
They leave their footprints sometimes two chords deep,
They pass through me,
And when they reach my rib cage, I kind of fold inside,
I stop what I’m doing and I pay attention.
The trees look different when that happens;
They sway the way my grandfather laughed
When I showed him my crayons.
You know my father visits.
Sometimes he hides behind his dahlias
And poof he points out the dew drops
Just as if they’ve been there all along.
And sometimes the clouds spell words
Embedded in my memory

Now Karla, I told her.
This cannot be proven.
You die, I die, this much we know.
But at that point the buddhists think one thing
And the republicans another
And you know that priest
Who told me I was risking heaven,
Me, who follows 8 of the 10 commandments.
I dismissed him, but he could be right.
It would have to be two way communication,
Don’t you think, if the dead could speak?

You shouldn’t doubt, she answered,
Your friend Renee told you yourself
To say fuck as a prayer
And see astonish as a sign.
And I’ve watched you raise a broom to the ceiling,
Knocking a hello from here to there.
You told me yourself,
Time isn’t linear
And love outlasts a fleshy mess.

Why doubt it, she said.
Why be dead
When you might not die?
What mother would leave her children
 here floundering, trying to understand
how something holy cannot hold water?

You might be right, Karla,
i hope you are.
But even thin lines are still lines
And lines have two ends.
i can’t follow two ends.
I’d rather just one
I’m a circle girl, Karla,
And you know what?
Circles might be paper thin too





Karen Jasper
January 2012