Ghost Sonnet
       

Ask the water to know my ankles,
and I ask for the flood.
                                      Ask for the bridge—
it's the other side I want.
                                      I see water

from everywhere but the bottom,
dark holes where boys dive and reach

into time, the scalloped mail of scales
peeling open a wrist....
                                      Ask for the hand?
You ask for nails.
Ask for the bird of peace—
                                      it's the crow,

driving the singing flocks
from suspension cables,
while a man passes me (we are strangers)
on a bicycle,
                                      asking each
wooden plank we cross
                                      to be one road.

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Copyright © 2013 Emilia Phillips All rights reserved
from Signaletics
The University of Akron Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission