Ghost
       

I saw then.

                In your sickness I had become
my own ghost, half sensed in the light
that draped beneath the curtains;

                obliterated softly on the landing
when you passed by.

Every shade pulled down. The garden
boarded up, the particular and the waste.

Still, the water glass on the table filling itself,
                over and over.
Plates and cups cleared away.

The little book by your bedside
thumbed through at night, while you slept,
the pages rustling, making sounds like

                        'oh the green fields'
and 'the stars light up'
                        and 'the world is out there'.

A city, a wilderness,
my own voice reaching out to touch you,
                                                          until
the path of narration suddenly goes dark
                        and you cannot hear me.

Not possible
to haul you all the way back, into the light.

But I would.

Having lived once, didn't it seem so ordinary,
that walking safely out into the world?

You knew it even then -
in all of our marvelous existences
no one could have loved you more,
no one would have given as much as I did.

Listen now again:

                Come to the window.
                Draw back the blinds.

                Remember me.

Mountains and sky.
Cinnamon, laughter, dew-light.

                This is what I came back to tell you.

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Copyright © 2018 Leanne O'Sullivan All rights reserved
from A Quarter of an Hour
Bloodaxe Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission