Phone Calls at 9 PM

These are the people who write about death:
the red-eyed waif with a cut on her cheek,
the old lady reading today's paper,
the man laughing amid the crowd.

How can a phone call change anything?
The tendrils of your head are in waves now.
I know you'd hate it if we put "Angel"
on your tombstone in bold, tactless letters,

Like how I hated it when you borrowed my dolls.
Will you sit beside me tonight
and hear me asking for forgiveness?
I can almost feel the flapping of your wings.

There is a black slab of penitence
on my chest; my mother pinned it on
with trembling hands. I held them
the way I held yours in the last slumber

I shared with you.