As We Are

The ghosts will last past each one of us,
But will they last past us all? Will they

Get up off the page and dance, get out
Of their shells and signs and go, like lives,

Like bats from black caves, birds from barn lofts,
Hatched crabs that race down the shore? Sky! Sea!

We don’t know. We won’t know. How could we
Know, save so far as we are your ghosts?