You will learn this:

High school is over and friends become

faces attached to yellow-hazed memories and outdated cell phone numbers

and time makes mysteries of the present:

who’s pregnant? who’s in the army? she’s in Italy?

And an old friend you have not seen in two years

will lose her mother to cancer

You had never met the mother

But you had been in her house and seen the pictures on her fridge

and the leftovers within it. You had seen what she read in the bathroom

and had known the daughter she made

So

You know her artifacts, her productions

but not her face

You gasp at the news of her death

but it will be a slow gasp

You will say, "Oh, god..."

Not knowing how to feel

But knowing where and when the wake is

And not knowing whether you will go

Whether your old friend needs or knows you anymore

You will read the obituary the next morning

with coffee and feel like you're doing cheap

preliminary research

For a face and memory that never belonged to you