Tuesday, September 17, 2024

I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOSTS

          "I’m Nobody! Who are you?"
               -Emily Dickinson 

Unconscionable, yes, but 
where's the tragedy 
in death? 

By what trick of light 
may the forever 
of after 

be glimpsed, however
slightly, in the mirror 
of before?

If we're no one 
while we're here, 
by what rights do we fear 

this kind of non-swimming 
through the ocean of no more, 
or those 

flowers of intangibleness  
which bloom by the banks 
of the unconscious? 

Valuelessness 
must have 
no valence, at best:

nothing more 
to nobody.
Ashes. Dust. Rest.