You never hear them speak, but you see them.
Bill, whose heart exploded ten years ago:
a taller version of him folds The Wall Street Journal
lengthwise one morning, and though
you never saw Bill read the newspaper,
he would have folded it this way.
And Jon, released somehow from the ceiling of ice
over a March pond, stands warm and intact
on an elevated train.
Charlie, the laughing man who called himself
Sweet Chocolate, sells incense in a Queens subway station,
but he wears white linen now, and healthy flesh
fills out his round cheeks.
You keep forgetting they found Pete slumped
on a bathroom floor; you swear you see him drive by
with the windows down, singing and shirtless.
And Jim, whose shoulders filled your doorways
all those years, appears on the #7 one night,
his right temple without blemish; he is turned
toward the black window, he pays you no mind at all.
You see them. They live in cities. They change.
