When light plates a thing,
it will, in some sense, forever be plated,
forever be captured and living
and spoken.
How much of what we see
will we also see
in the afterlife?
you asked.
And how much can we pack to take with us?
If light can be framed, it can be kept,
though not the filtered kind,
the bits that waffle through the kitchen
window screens in foreign shapes and sentences
over bagels in the breakfast nook.
There is a level to the solid world
that the dead familiarize as a breathing,
and the waking hide in their coat pockets
unearth it when you can, or you will be forever
shadowed
in shallow pools of water
asking about the sound your skin makes when you shake it clean.
