To weep unbidden, to wake
at night in order to weep, to wait
for the whisker on the face of the clock
to twitch again, moving
the dumb day forward—

is this merely practice?
Some believe in heaven,
some in rest. We’ll float,
you said. Afterward
we’ll float between two worlds—

five bronze beetles
stacked like spoons in one
peony blossom, drugged by lust:
if I came back as a bird
I’d remember that—

until everyone we love
is safe is what you said

This feels like it is many different ideas of what the afterlife is. I believe that the first stanza is about death itself, the act of dying, a slow death of old age or illness. The second stanza I feel as 3 different ideas of the afterlife, Heaven, Nothing, and one where you float around like a ghost. The third stanza is the vast possibilities, anything can happen. Though, I think that might be reincarnation, which is clear by the last 2 lines of that stanza. And the last stanza, I think that it’s about seeing your loved ones as an animal after reincarnation, closely relating to the third stanza in it’s meaning.