when your dead friends come to visit
you should invite them in, of course

the experience will be almost completely normal

it can’t be completely normal
or you might forget you’re alive
which could cause a multitude of issues
in your life

you have to be so careful
to remember this

you can blow into the plastic wand
but never close off the soap bubble

my dead friend came to visit
and I invited her in, of course,
because I am polite but also
because I love her

and we sat down in a slightly
different version of my kitchen
and I touched her arm and told her
I’d missed her, which was true

she told me she hadn’t missed me
which was also true

“I’m dead,” she shrugged,
“I don’t miss anything”

I said “I don’t believe that,
you must at least miss food”
and she laughed as I rushed
to gather the bread and jam

continuing as I pulled out every drawer

no matter where I looked
I couldn’t find a knife
I had to cut the bread with an ice skate

I didn’t even notice
I was closing my eyes
until it was too late

 

 

 

 

 

***

Kimmy Walters is from St. Louis, MO and lives in San Diego, CA. Her first two collections of poetry, Uptalk and Killer, are available from Bottlecap Press. She tweets as @arealliveghost.