My Dead
By Tim Nolan
They grow in number all the time
The cat, the Mother, the Father
The grandparents, aunts, and uncles
Those I knew well and hardly at all
My best friend from when I was ten
The guy who sat with me in the back
Of the class where the tall kids lived
Bill the Shoemaker from Lyndale Avenue
The Irish poet with rounded handwriting
They live in The Land of Echo, The Land
Of Reverb, and I hear them between
The notes of the birds, the plash of the wave
On the smooth rocks. They show up
When I think of them, as if they always
Are waiting for me to remember
I drive by their empty houses
I put on their old sweaters and caps
I wear their wristwatches and spend
Their money. So now I'm in six places
At once—if not eighteen or twenty
So many places to be thinking of them
Strange how quiet they are with their presence
So humble in the low song they sing
Not expecting that anyone will listen
Copyright Credit:
Poem copyright ©2015 by Tim Nolan, "My Dead," (The New Republic, August 14, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Tim Nolan and the publisher.