You asked of test-tube clumps
Of live brain cells that fired
Waves of spikes—signs? lives? souls?
How do you know the dead
Aren’t glad they’re not still stuck
To clumps of life like you?
Your best guess is they aren’t
Since they don’t send back signs,
That’s all. And what are we,
Here in these rows, these words
In these lines, if not signs?
Turns out the ghosts were first,
Laughs the sage, or at least
They were far as they knew.
