Answer Me

I wanted to call you today, even though I knew you would not answer.

It's been years, but I kept your number; I see it when I search for the digits of doctors, aunts, uncles and mom.

It's then that I allow myself a moment to pretend I could call and check to see how you're doing.

I picture myself dialing; you answer and we fill one another in on the new course of our lives.

We'd agree it had been far too long since we got together and make plans to meet at your place for dinner.  If it were like old times, I would be cooking while you kept busy, distracted with grading papers, but I wouldn't mind.

I have to remind myself that kitchen now belongs to the people who bought the place. They fill the air with smells that are not yours; but for a moment I can almost taste that chicken you loved to make...the one whose recipe I lost.

I should just forget the number: it probably belongs to some exhausted soccer mom, always on the run and wondering who I am to interrupt her mad rush into the store for milk and toothpaste before her toddler wakes up from his nap.

It is not as if I need to call ahead to see your new home, though it's door is always shut and will not open to me. I know it's yours because it says so in the letters engraved across its face.

I cry awhile, and try talking, but I have yet to hear you answer. I hold my one-sided conversations until I run out of things to say.

I carefully apply my lipstick and quietly kiss the open space next to your name before I leave; admiring how the bright color stands out dramatically against the dark stone.

Maybe one day when the grave yields up their dead you will see it and know I came calling.