Ghosts

Who have lost the dots to draw 

their bodies back together

Who spin over living-dreams like ceiling fans

Who kneel in hopeless ritual by the beds

of their children still marooned in life

Who push over trees in anger

Who want to touch the face of living

but find their fingers falling through

Who rise like water through time and denounce

their relegated least resistance

Who paint their bodies on the minds 

of the sleeping -- hoping

Who hold hope like nets sweeping still 

water and fear that all things 

below water are dead

Are they dead, am I dead, is dead

dead. Ghosts hover over questions

they are unable to ask. Only

like the living

Who are reaching toward the grave

to bring time back and restore

the bone puzzle of the missing

into walking. Statures of memory. 

For it is not the new we desire

but the remembered and how it made

us feel. Feel the air cutting 

above your face as you breathe that

last awake breath before sleeping.

Let your fingers be the author

of creation. Power enough to close

the door to death and clutch

the ghosts. 

Who are quickly turning 

to the shreiks of owls 

post-dusk. And calling for your hands

to become particles of two worlds

and hold them near

Author's Note

2022