Waking Upside Down Under Water

He dreamed 
he was waiting in line
at the Department of Motor Vehicles,

standing in a row of cardboard eunuchs.

They were holding hands like a 
paper-chain of faceless children, 

and they were singing: 
Please cut us out

just as fast as you possibly can.

He was singing, too,

and thinking of the last time

he kissed his wife's hand.

She was looking 
out the passenger window. 
I'm lonesome as hell, she said,

whenever you're around.

They were driving somewhere 
through flashing shafts of sun and shade,
pillars of pine-shadow and green-dusty light.

He took her hand
and said:
I wasted life. 
Why wouldn't I
waste the afterlife?