Roll Call (Poetry)

Like a register of those no longer present
I tick off their fading names
one by one — called home for tea
in the midst of our street games.

I feel like the child left out to play
alone as dusk is falling
yet I still hear their voices far-off
calling ... calling ... calling ...

A gallery of lost and missing persons
the list goes on and on
I dream they will come back for me —
lead me wherever they have gone.

Someday I’ll be absent, too
and someone else can count my head
as reunited with the gang
and numbered safe among the dead.