A few days after getting a new phone number
Strangers left messages on my new phone for weeks, how much they’d miss me, how they wished we’d chatted one last time before I died. A colleague posts for our departed friend, You were always there for me. Now you’re not. then tags her, an account full of farewells. Parents preserve their child’s room, his Lego castle almost completed for decades. We set an extra plate for them at meals, see them in hummingbirds outside our windows. They leave us feathers, heart-shaped shells on beaches. Never stop pestering the dead with prayers, plastic flowers, and sake. Let the dead go about their business of being dead.
Richard Newman (he/him) is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Blues at the End of the World (Kelsay Books, 2024). His work has appeared in American Journal of Poetry, Best American Poetry, Boulevard, Clockhouse, I-70 Review (featured poet), Innisfree Poetry Journal, Poetry East, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, and many other magazines and anthologies. He currently teaches Creative Writing and World Literature at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco. Before moving to the Maghreb, he and his family lived in Vietnam, Japan, and the Marshall Islands.
