The day after I die,
I wake up a little late.
The sun is already
thick in the air—see it
glitter, all that dust I didn’t dust
before I died. I do not
dust it this day, either.
Nor do I worry
that I have not dusted.
I notice I have hands.
They are heavy
on my belly, my chest.
I rise. There is no
special exuberance
in the rising, though
it is a miracle. All day
I marvel. It is very quiet,
this grace. I saw myself
leaving these rooms,
this place. Yet death
came and went and
there is breakfast
to make and a job
to do and a hum
to be hummed by and later
this night when
my daughter comes
to me in her silky
pink Dora pajamas and
lifts up her arms,
she says into my neck,
I wish that my room
was farther away
because I like it when
you carry me and I
can pretend I
am asleep in your arms.
She pretends she is
asleep all the short way
to her bed, but when
I lay her there, she begins
to laugh and kick. Is this
what I have been doing
all my life, pretending
I am asleep? I lay with her
a long time, held by
invisible forces I could
perhaps explain but
do not understand.
All day, no one noticed
I had died. It’s not
that I was trying to hide
it. It must have been
all that life still falling
out of my pockets,
not that I was saving
it on purpose, just
that it was there
for the living.