"Defoe's Story"-- "It took place in London
at the end of the 17th century.
A man was spending the evening at home,
often thinking of a friend of his, a woman who was very ill,
worrying about her, hoping she would live.
When there was a knock on the door and she entered,
looking fine--
thriving, in fact-- and sat down in a normal way and began
a normal conversation, though she seemed a little more
serious than usual until he began to cry,
at which point she continued quietly discussing things
of the soul, aspects of time, and he began to sob,
and she continued speaking quietly as he sobbed
and sobbed--
and when he finally looked up, she was gone.
The story is not unusual and belongs
to a subgenre in which the dead person seems
to drop in on a few old friends on the way out,
giving no indication that he or she has died, but stays
and speaks, saying, the clear water at the bottom of my hand
will make a turn, and my hand will go bottomless
like a mirror forgets my face.
At the slightest glance, there was
a man standing beside the clear water pooled in the rock
beneath the tree.
The bright leaves tore up the light.
You would have seen that he was part of the light
and asked him to help me climb down."