Saturday, December 12, 2020

Prose Poem: The Great Beyond.

 




So the lady that lived next door

to me in my apartment building

died in her sleep the other day.

Her children came by this afternoon

to her ground floor apartment to 

move everything out through the 

sliding patio door.

I didn't think too much 

about her death

but that night I dreamed 

she appeared to me in a nimbus

of cold blue light.

She never looked too good

in life,

and I'm sorry to report

that she

still looked pretty awful

in the Great Beyond.

Like five miles of bad road.

Even her robe looked dingy.

She just stared at me,

not in a threatening way,

but kinda sad and tired.

Didn't really see much exaltation

in her, to tell the truth.

Since she appeared not to want

to start the conversation,

I went first:

"I'm sorry to say that I never

knew your name" I told her.

"What is it?"

"Lucy Henderson" she replied

in a normal voice.

She didn't rattle any chains

or moan or float around like

a helium balloon --

and, quite frankly, I was 

at a loss to know what she wanted

of me. If anything. 

"Was there something you wanted

to communicate to me?" I finally asked her.

"Like the meaning of existence or maybe 

a warning about global warming or somethin'?"

She began to disintegrate, breaking up into

tiny yellow pieces.

Before she was gone she said:

"Tell everyone to bring lots of quarters.

There's none here and the washers

and dryers won't take anything else."

Then she was gone.

When I woke up the next morning

I went down to the bank to get

a roll of quarters.

But then decided that was a 

foolish thing to do.

Cuz, see, I'm gonna go

nudist in the Great Beyond.


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