THE DEAD DON’T DISAPPEAR

Hasse had a yellow vespa

he let me ride around the block

I would have taken his name

his hands were beautiful

and told me everything I needed.

On his 18th birthday, his parents

gave him a little red sports car

A month later he was dead.

Robert got caught between his need 

for drugs and the men from Yugoslavia.  

He asked me to care for his cat, 

but my mother hates pets so I said no. 

The cat died, too, when Robert 

turned on the gas.

Johan, which wasn’t his real name,

waited for the Stockholm train

to pick up speed on its northern track

and then he ran right into it.

Nothing left. They only found

his earring.

When Kari came back 

after the accident she walked funny 

and she looked at me—eyes empty—

no longer knowing we 

were best friends.

My sister didn’t die that time either

because her roommate had forgotten

her textbook, ran up the stairs again,

found a bloody mess. Memory

a phonebook, old and full of names.

PUBLISHED IN SLANT, A JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY POETRY, FALL 2023