As the Last Angel Blows His Rusted Horn

What they might remember
flickers like a moth’s wing in a headlight
and is gone. They are there, they are
there and they no longer know
bewilderment. That it should be
at all, the afterlife, and in a kitchen
overcrowded with blank strangers
gives no pause. Some have chairs.
Others stand, or lean against the counters
with arms crossed. There is no talk:
they are entranced by the unidentifiable
color of the walls. When they move,
their limbs bend with the slowness
of divers on the ocean floor. Some reach
their wondrous hands into the endless
rows of open cabinets, fingering the edges
of old cans or spreading fingertips
along the dust. As sheer as steam, eternal
children pass vaguely into one another
and then part. They cast no shadows,
walking without care or direction
and are never lost. Their parents turn
back to themselves, wholly absorbed
by the clink of mismatched silverware
being forever jostled in its drawers.