Birthday of the Dead

By David M. Harris

Facebook has solved that pesky problem

of mortality. Most of my dead friends seem 

to keep having birthdays. Every year 

I get reminders of Susan’s birthday, and Mal’s,

and Tony’s and Gardner’s, and all 

that expanding roster.

Their profiles still greet me

and invite fresh communication. 

I am urged to post a new message

keeping the dead informed, reminding them 

that I am still pleased to know them

or to have known them. Tense is

problematic.

                     Not many people 

still post there, as word spreads,

but those pages are open for business.

And every year their hosts still go on having birthdays,

helping the survivors forget that terrible

border between living and being dead.

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Until 2003, David M. Harris had never lived more than fifty miles from New York City. Since then he has moved to Tennessee, acquired a daughter and a classic MG, and gotten serious about poetry.  His work has appeared in Pirene's Fountain (and in First Water, the Best of Pirene's Fountain anthology), Gargoyle, The Labletter, The Pedestal, and other places. His first collection of poetry, The Review Mirror, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2013.