Afterworld

There is no hunger here. Nor do we eat.
We have not bodies so much as a ghost
shape of what we were at the time of our
greatest engagement in the life we left
for this place without place, night, or day.

We watch instead the nights and days
of those we knew when we were there
where time and hunger, day and thirst,
mean something. We disembodied
creatures scarcely talk to one another

except to understand a little of the
other scenes unfolding that aren't
ours to watch with personal interest
though ‘personal' seems an odd and
oddly inaccurate adjective. We see

the remains of our own lives keenly.
We can't affect anything or speak
to anyone left behind, whether loved/
hated, liked/disliked, or some feeling
in between but not indifference. We suffer

the one agony only- of having no longer
any physical effect nor way to speak
of what we watch to those we watch.
Where we are there is no control
of us or anything we see. We only

watch and wonder what, if anything,
awaits us when we disappear as some,
here for a very long time, have said
will happen if you notice absences, notice
the flickering out of another's story.