Who are you? I say.
I am no one, she replies,
and everyone.

I ask, What does death mean?
It means a life
and nothing more.

I ask what she misses most
about being alive.
Nothing, she says,
except everything.

I ask if all the dead
become ghosts.
No, she says, many dissolve
like tears in the ocean.

I ask if the dead
count the time.
Time, she says, is the
Landlord, you are
a squatter.

I ask if dead
souls live forever.
I will ask the fire,
she says, if the ashes
remember it.