Talking with the dead

I hear them before I see them. Two sisters in the grocery store.

Friday afternoon, about 4:30pm.

One pushes a tiny cart piled with food, the other, younger, runs the length of the aisle shouting.

Mom.

*

I'm in the same position at my job as I was when I started. Nineteen years ago.

You were eleven. You’ve been dead nearly four.

It’s early summer, like it has been twenty-nine times before.

*

There is other work to do.

I get my ideas from porn in the staff bathroom at work.

One dead father tells me what he wants me to do.

*

The littlest one has a tiny green sticker of a frog in the middle of her forehead.

Mom.

*

Tiny yogurts, oranges, limes.

Take care of his son. Tie him to a chair.

Let him rest.

Another tells me to bring his wife food.

Olives, ripe tomatoes.

*

Not to touch her, except to hold her hand.

One father says, redeem me.

Case of beer, bottle of whiskey.

*

Behind them, you.

Chocolate pretzels. Meth. More beer.

Mom.

*

At the till, the littlest one with a bouquet.

Lilies. Roses. Carnations.

Smell, she orders.

I do.