My friend says with death
you have a stone, grass
to kneel upon, the raised
burnished letters of a name,
dates of a life that started
and stopped.

Not this roaming the earth
alive, this body that might
intersect your sight anytime,
    or someone you know reporting
a sighting — on the corner
of 8th Avenue and Clark
there he stood

with a brimming bag of groceries
and flowers, a smile
on his face — no one,
nothing appeared
to be haunting him.