Toll

Will there be a fig tree at the turn 
or at the crossing into light, and will its leaves
spread like garments of green to drape across 
our thighs?

Will there be persimmons bending
their golden weight across the fences
of neighbors, and the binding 
scent of flowering jasmine?  

No one can tell you 
what it's like and yet we sound
so sure of what the dead will need
in their afterlife—

the price of a ticket,
a blanket for the cold; one
blunt candle, a book of prayers 
to while away the time.