The upward looking ones
have come to wait at the bottom
of this wall for what might drop:
the other shoe, a revealing self-portrait,
falling chunks of paint.
Meanwhile, the sky above churns,
ready to rain great drops
of jealousy—for the world
of beings below no longer
seeks an afterlife up there,
but in this darkening square.

For the search for light,
these days, brings them to
this halfway-up hole, which
lacks a bulb, a candle,
or any bolt of lightning.
It is one water-stained wall,
one in an empire of many, leaning out-
of-this-world-ward.

Inside it, souls
are washing up, getting pretty,
asking one another the universally
correct time, and where
dogs really go when they die.
And the inquiry that has
even the clouds spellbound
is how to get to the first of six
rungs up toward the sweeter life
without first having
to exit the earth.