The White Place Poem by Patrick McGuinness

One afternoon we watched a programme on near-death
experiences: a woman tunnelled back through life

to what came after, and was reluctant
to return, since her life paled beside the white place

she'd been pulled back from. Now she lived between the two,
nostalgic for the afterwards she'd died into.

The next day, dozing on a stationary train
you woke and asked the question that had woken

in your mind as if it were on mine: ‘The white place'
you asked, ‘will anybody else be there?'

I didn't know. I hadn't thought to ask - no one
had - if in the white place we'd be alone

or with other people. You asked about
your friends, if the best of here translates

to there, or if we leave, as we come in, alone.
I still don't know. I think that we are not alone.

I think it less for your sake now than for my own.