Just How Many Ghosts Are in Your Head, Anyway?

Common as it is to know
A person from only words,
Or words and moving pictures,

Or any combination
Of virtual encounters,
Reciprocated or not,

It’s still fairly rare to feel
You knew someone a little,
Had some kind of acquaintance

From mute images alone.
Still, there are those photographs,
Those two-dimensional ghosts

That can haunt you as if you
Knew a personality,
A human being through them,

And if there’s been a human
Living through all the years since
Such photographs were taken

Who one day re-enters life
Through an obituary,
You may find yourself mourning.