The house on the corner
is missing a window.
Grey shingles slide and dangle
half off the eves.
A neighbor cuts the grass.
The mailbox tilts,
jammed with yellowing pages.
A cracked sidewalk leads to fallen-in
stairs and the rotting porch.
No car sits in the driveway
hot engine ticking into rest.
No lights shine through
the shredded curtains.
But every April
purple irises surround
the foundation,
blazing new life
down the block.
May Kuroiwa
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GHOSTS
ReplyDeleteI was just writing a few words, maybe to send to you, I
don’t know, when my Jonah, dead wife whispered in my ear,
you are not thinking of writing to another woman and not
mentioning me, are you? and so my field notes about
hummingbirds were transformed into something very different;
I lost control over the message.
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you? Nor life after death.
Neighbors left some balloons, one balloon stayed inflated, long
after she died. I put it in the next room. One morning when I
didn’t feel like facing another lonely day, the balloon
came into our bedroom and stood by the bed. I got up, kissed
my wife on her lips and escorted the balloon back to the other
room.
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
A friend, who never knew my birthday, called me on my
birthday,. Is today your birthday, she asked, Happy Birthday.
Go celebrate. I asked her how she knew. Jonah whispered
in my ear, she explained. She is Russian, the Russians will
believe anything.
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
Jonah wanted a larger apartment, New York will keep me alive
she said, and if not, you will enjoy it. No, I thought, I’ll get rid
of it and keep what we had.
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
But when I looked at the old apartment, I could not live
where her spirit was was so strong and moved into the empty
rooms that she had wanted,. Did she push me out of the old
and into the new?
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
She was possessive with her papers, her desk her own
created chaos, her filing system her own and I an unwelcome
interloper. Now I have to make my own sense of those papers,
my hands trembling, my heart racing, apologizing.
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
Sometimes she calls me, early in the half light. Why would she call me?
If she was here she could just nudge me.
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
Her closets are filled with her clothes, such familiar
and comforting forms, expressing all of who she is, her
moods, colors, styles, enthusiasms, loves, ambitions,
follies, failures, fantasies—
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
and I should clear them out, replace them with empty air.
I should . I will. One day. Maybe…
I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?
Peter Goodwin