The world of direct marketing
is a medium reaching out to you,
dearly departed first wife.
Three decades since our divorce
and as many changes of address,
Progressive still wants you to know
you can save when you bundle your insurance.
No tarot cards, no crystal ball, just an algorithm
that believes we’re still together,
that believes you’re still alive.
One flier seems to say
Give us a sign. Show us
you’re interested in Viking cruises.
And now, eight months since you died,
in the inbox of a seldom used email,
they want to know, dear dead one,
who you plan to vote for in the fall.
Of course, you never left me,
haunted me long before you actually died,
but I’m the only one who should know
you’re there in the guilty way I go on breathing,
the way I venerate the only photo of you I kept
like an icon of a long lost saint.
Now, Facebook necromantically
conjures your picture, tells me
you’re someone I might know.
The veil is thin in cyberspace.
I click on your image, make you my friend.
A friend is better than a ghost.
Isn’t it? Give me a sign.
R. G. Evans is a New Jersey-based poet, writer, and songwriter. His books include Overtipping the Ferryman, The Holy Both, and Imagine Sisyphus Happy. His albums of original songs, Sweet Old Life and Kid Yesterday Calling Tomorrow Man, are available on most streaming sites.