Night Visitors

All night, they visit,
these lost ones in their
yellow shirts and blue jeans,
their hemp bracelets and favorite
hats, their hair freshly permed
and glowing like the blue
of the t.v. screen, their earlobes
sporting handmade Navajo jewelry,
their faces the way I remember them,
not like they were before the casket
closed but like they were before
there was a casket to close
them in, their smiles unwavering,
their arms doing any number of things:
filling a laundry basket, holding
a newborn baby, wrapping around
the waist of a lover, reaching to get
a can of soup from the shelf, opening
wide enough to be filled with the pain
of the living.

I wake and look around
the darkened room for some
proof of their existence,
but there is only my husband
asleep beside me, a cat at my feet,
my pounding heart, the arthritic
shadows of the nearly bare
dogwood, the splintered light
of a retreating moon, red numbers
glaring from the bedside table, assaulting
my senses with their truth: 2:45
a.m., the silent phone, that bearer
of such bad news, nestled in its
cradle, the soft light
beaming from beneath
the closed bathroom door,
my son asleep in his room:
me--feet now touching the floor,
pacing the rooms of this old
house, prowling around alone again,
waiting for the dead to come.