On winter nights, the dead see their photographs slipped from the windows of wallets, their letters stuffed in a box with the clothes for Goodwill. No one remembers their jokes, their nervous habits, their dread of enclosed places. In these nightmares, the dead feel the soft nub of the eraser lightening their bones. They wake up in a panic, go for a glass of milk and see the moon, the fresh snow, the stripped trees. Maybe they fix a turkey sandwich, or watch the patterns on the T.V. It's all a dream anyway. In a few months they'll turn the clocks ahead, and when they sleep they'll know the living are grieving for them, unbearably lonely and indifferent to beauty. On these nights the dead feel better. They rise in the morning, refreshed, and when the cut flowers are laid before their names they smile like shy brides. Thank you, thank you, they say. You shouldn't have, they say, but very softly, so it sounds like the wind, like nothing human.© Kim Addonizio
from The Philosopher's Club (BOA Editions, 1994)