And two months after the cancer finally ate through
the last tissues that separated him from death,
I get a message from his e-mail address,
urging me to click on a link I know I shouldn’t,

though I’m tempted, I really am,
to see where it takes me, to see if ghosts
haunt the Internet the way we kind of wish
they haunted our lives —
                                                                     that is, kindly,
reassuringly.

                                         Reassuringly because
if they exist after death, maybe, just maybe,
we will, too.

                                                   But I know better
and don’t click on anything.

After I delete it, though, I search for
and read the last real message he sent:

                            dear jim,

                            i’m back home now. thank you for letting me visit.
                            please tell everyone else I was glad to meet them —
                            and let me know if I can do anything in the future.