Asking people
What happens to them
after they die
Is like asking babies in the womb
What happens to them
After they’re born—
How can they answer
When they don’t even know
how to speak yet,
When they don’t even know
Their mother tongue
So they can understand
the question
to begin with
Or anything
About the outside world?
Ask a sperm cell
What happens to it
after it fertilizes
an ovum.
Ask the umbilical cord
What happens to it
after it becomes
a bellybutton.
Ask a baby in the womb
What religion it is
or if its mother
believes
in immortality.
Ask an unborn baby in its mother
Who is making love with its father
what’s happening.
Ask an unborn baby
Entering the birth canal
Just about to be born
if there’s life after birth.
(originally appearing in Touch Each Other, 2015)
