Five Visions of the Afterlife

1
People float.
All your wants sprout
like mushrooms every morning.
You dice them into unheard-of
soups of heaven.

2

Everybody’s mother is there,
all of them as golden as your own mother.
Eternally... she knits for you
sweaters out of her sweet, warm breath.
She has quit drinking.

3

Silk scarves travel in flocks
like liquid birds and sing
The food is strange
and weightless; you can eat it and eat it.
It only fills you like music.

4

There are black eels with human faces.
They laugh at you
because you can never get away
from this place that is a fire
fueled forever by the fat of your soul.

5