Open Letter on Absent Friends
       

Some people bid on secondhand mandolins after drinking tequila
or print off a hundred photos of the gang's last raucous outing
to hand out at the current outing, far more sparse and depressing
because everyone quit smoking and eating meat and of course
no more lines blown off CD jewel cases because all the music is
digital and we're either drug tested regularly or sworn straight
edge and barely capable of finishing a twelve-ounce Diet Pepsi.
A few of us inscribe thoughtful notes on the Facebook walls
of absent friends, but others say shit like We Gotta Hang Soon
Dude when the dude has been dust for a decade, or tag a lost
comrade in a photo from Florida in 1993, but not nostalgically.
I'm most guilty of using Google Earth to check up on certain
intersections, but not because I am still burned over my wallet
tossed into a creek by someone who shortly thereafter lost
herself across the Michigan-Ohio border. Some of us tried to
pour one out for her, but it was November and blew back,
much like a petty nag on a memorial Instagram post intended
to crystallize the beauty of our collective youth. All of us
washed our clothes in a trashcan and hung them off the porch.
The entire gang heaved into the street on the evening later
called Laced Tuesday. We had no photos from the time Ted
stole Carly's ID and cash and I brandished my bike chain.
When your friends have perished under tragic circumstances
eventually they become like beloved characters from books.
You recall being really close in a room, queasy, unsteady or
hot, and then you wake up and your dress is on the floor.

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Copyright © 2020 Mary Biddinger All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission