A Bigger and More Interesting Life

Letting the dead talk gives them a big freedom to tell the truth

If the dead could mail

Letters after death,

Maybe they would tell

The truth, freed from shame

And obligation,

Or ego’s desire

For self-curation.

But they can’t, for one,

And it’s a mistake,

For another, this

Myth it’s just outside

Social compression

Distorts people’s lives,

Makes everyone lie.

More likely, the dead

Would only lie more

Freely, now no one

Else can confine them—

Shame shamelessly glossed,

Plain lives lost behind

Self-aggrandizement.

Spoon River was meant

For living readers

To imagine those

Truths hid in others

People are aware

Must be there. The dead,

Talking to themselves,

Would lie more freely,

Happily—Who cares?