Who is to say there isn’t a Post Office
in the Afterlife where Spirits
hang out, those who left things unsaid,
piles of mail stacking up.

Envelopes from the Living
addressed to the Dead,
envelopes from the Dead
addressed to the Living.

My first scrawl a rush of objections,
tucked in your long box, as you fell into the dark.
You sent back terrible days instead
of a reply: papery skies that fluttered grey

and flattened. Aloneness, a swirl of ink.
I sat wrapped in winter, in coffeeshops,
on sofas, subway cars that shrieked
as they barreled corners, hands clenched

on hand-rails, never touching.
How about an explanation?
You know, scratch that. Let’s concede the abyss,
your exit final, a thing of ash,

irreversible. On to the next envelope then—
the one I’m sure a minor death-god licked shut;
it arrived stamp-less, stinking of dust.
I opened it and see you’re now a mystic,

disinclined to speak plainly.
Do you miss me? What’s it like being dead?
It was terrible how your hair shone on a waxed you,
the priest un-ready, bungling your name,

the vacuum cleaner rumbling down the hallway
muffled by shag carpet and woe.
And time did not stand still,
not even for a moment, a year or a fictional day.

So who is to say there isn’t a congregation
of Dead, coruscating by the piled stack
where my last envelope unglues itself,
bursts into flames, opens its mouth to wail:

the dirt’s a tease, never gives back what we want.
With words, we unwind the earth’s shroud
—stones, breastbones, bitter taste of solitary thoughts,
these fragments tumble out.