Limbo

Now that the Catholic church may get rid
of Limbo, where will all of those people go?
Will the floor drop out and dump them
into a long freefall through the blackness
toward the flickering red pinpoint of light
down below? Or will the sky crack open,
and all the souls grow wings that finally
catch the wind that's blown their ghosts
in aimless tides for countless eons; then
they'll fly up into the light at last?
Will a judge be sent, Saint Peter out
from behind his bench for the first time
in two millenia, to sort out the damned?

By now, they must have a culture all their own.
They believe the souls in Hell were weak
and easy to tempt when they walked the earth.
Those in Heaven are now sinless and live
in perfect joy, hardly human at all.
They believe only they are eternally free.
God is not there; Satan does not tempt.
Here, they shovel the sidewalks and mow
the lawn when needed; they pay no taxes
because no one needs bread or medicine
.
Maybe their religion fortells a day when a man,
an angel, once alive as they were once alive,
will come and usher in the last days of Limbo.
Or maybe it will come as a surprise. Maybe
they rarely think of Heaven and Hell at all.