Disreunion

You say a girl with your name
once knew a boy with my name:
They sat by each other in class,
had mutual friends,
went to football games and dances?
Yes, of course I remember
a girl with your name.

Then the flicker of familiarity
is swallowed in foreignness.
The reaching for nostalgia
reveals dislocation.
And we stand awkwardly,
stranger than strangers.

A girl with your name
once knew a boy with my name.
But those people,
like faded photographs,
have passed.

Why have we kept the names
of the dead?