WARD KELLY
Unusually Cooperative Dead

After the dead ones have dive-bombed
the mind for enough years, one absorbs
their idea how time is time undone which
circles, circles, all the souls in a river

shaped like the two minds of the soul:
a reclined figure eight; and if this is so,
truly the dead ones can tell us
of the future instead of the past.

"You are looking at your future,"
the dead ones pirouette their wispy,
wiry forms, "why do you abruptly
feel a need to know all the nuances

of this one particular fleshy life?"
I couldn't tell why the thought
became a need . . . but all the same.
"Well then, go ahead, what would you

have us foretell?" the dead ones
appeared unusually cooperative,
so much so, I realized it was indeed
the struggle that was of importance,

not the details of victories
and defeats, births and deaths.
All my questions fled, then I retained
only a severe disappointment with my

own curiosity. "Well, we're waiting,
waiting," they said.