The Facebook algorithm tells me I have
memories to share with friends – and when I look
I see that one of them died four years ago.
She was always a meticulous person
but seems to have neglected to leave details
of what to do with her Facebook account.
Now LinkedIn is encouraging me
to congratulate a colleague – deceased
these nine years – on his work anniversary.
Social media is filling with dead souls
that pass across our screens like shooting stars.
Maybe these are deliberate memento
mori; if accidental, permitted
by heirs celebrating the departed’s
sense of the absurd – or a casualness
about our commonwealth, like space debris:
the flecks of paint off bits of satellites,
an astronaut’s toothbrush, a rocket
lost, junked in the heavens.
Pages:
By David Selzer