(for Catherine O’Brien)

And there we sat on her sofa,
our dead husbands prowling
the room like phantom cats,

though she never knew mine,
and I never knew hers, drifting
in, as they do, as we chatted,

my photographer and her artist,
some of his paintings on the walls
wrapping their arms around us,

as if to say, “There, there, girls,
right here with you, you know.”
Because, as mine taught me

long ago, the veil between
their side and ours is so thin,
they pop in as soon as they

hear their names, or even
as we think of them,
bless them,

blessing us.