Dead Numbers

I needed a coaster for a sweating glass

so I pulled a brick from the stack.

It’s a heavy ghost of the years that pass

in a cover of yellow and black.

I flipped it open to a random page

where the paper felt like dry skin.

It’s a paper cage for a different age

and the names that we used to be in.

There was Frank, three years in the ground,

with a number that still looks live.

It’s the strangest way to not be found,

listed as a four and a five.