It’s happened before
After moving
To see the hint of a friend from before
In a person I’m meeting for the first time
Just a ghost of a ghost
A common curve of the chin
Combined with a curiously familiar tilt of the head
It’s that guy’s eyes who remind my of a mentor
And that one’s shape of his head and how his teeth flash
When he laughs
Which whispers to me of another
It’s in a gesture reminiscent that she used
Which tells me a story of time long passed
Not for the first time have I wondered if the Universe
Ran out of templates
Cobbling together new people from bits of the old ones
We’re not snowflakes formed crystalline from moisture
In the frozen air
Unique
We are passed down and spliced and rearranged
Through the complex genetic shuffling
We are mirrors of each other
We are spirits grounded
We are expressions of something more than ourselves
And we are haunted
By ghosts of ghosts
Carefully knitting the past to the future
With present yarns
