This Is Not the Past

In dreams, some part of you
Has the task to pick names
To go with each blurred face.

She is still dead, now, when
You think of her as she
Lived then, and then, and then.

For each then, its own life,
Its own her, its her as
She was then, but for all

Of them, just the one ghost.
This is not the past, not
For her, not for one

Of you, the rest of us,
Not the past you were taught,
Books closed, time for a test.