Seance

How can we think the dead persist somewhere ?
A face breaks the surface of the crowd then sinks back
before we can cry Wait ! Hey you !

That should be proof enough, but then a glove,
inside out, the fingertips cut off,
appears on the sidewalk, rehashing its deathbed scene.

I used your brain for my death mask.
I knew you'd mind.
That was the point.

Even so, we shouldn't summon them. Here hurts them
like eczema, tic doloureux, tinnitus.
They whang like funny bones on the world's edge.

Just think of your own bad mornings, your very worst,
when you plunge from sublime weightlessness
into someone's weird idea of you, probably your own,

then leave the dead to incandesce in their rare unearth.
You know how words are lies ? The dead are, too.
Beautiful in their own way, but what a rip-off.


9.15.98