"Thank you for saying Happy Birthday to Shimone"
my mother said and I kind of said oh, no problem
and we went on from there to argue since that is what
we do and she will never know who I am
and I assume she meant Happy Birthday on Facebook because I
certainly don't keep track of her friend's birthdays,
especially not her friends who live in Haifa and remind
me of my X

Upset, I ran off to the pool, hoping for endorphins
after some laps  I rested at one end
and realized in a kind of slow, creeping way,
kind of like fog rolling in over the cliffs at Muir beach,
Not menacing, even beautiful, but a little cold, that
I never wrote anything to Shimone, not even on Facebook
No, I've been too self absorbed to write to my parents Israeli friends who used to
have me and my X over for Shabbat meals where I used to insist
on walking up the stairs since the elevator was small and hot and scared me
but he always wanted to ride in it
and one day we went over there was a sign on the apartments next door
that a woman had died in a terrorist attack the other day--
When a suicide bomber, afraid of the security guards at the nearby
mall, ran into an Arab restaurant conveniently located at a gas station
where all the best restaurants are,
and blew himself and everyone inside up
CNN international came for a day to report and then left the next
like a rude house guest who comes for your best food
and then dissapears, never to be heard from again

With my X, my mother always got cards she loved because he
knew just how to pick them and he'd send them without even telling me
sometimes faking my signature or
I just had to sign and he'd do the rest, in between crank calls to them at all hours,
taking advantage of the time zone.  At once tormenting and caring for them
as he did for me

And now is he a ghost in my account?  
A ghost, a fog, a memory, something ephemeral, not real