bye bye smoke spoken to the lifting, watered air from the spout the gone sabbath wick I've said, Is there any such thing? but/therefore his interest in ghosts : wisp drift (water that is not itself, though you are told otherwise). Only the sufferer can see one, for example; only the still-suffering dead can make such noise. [He cannot bear watching me hold another baby, despite repeated exposures. The child wants to take in (soak ; )all care] babychildbaby wordscrywords Wishing to speak to a someone now absent : a holding of mere air For solace I ask of the person I birthed (he is drawn to that which frightens and to that which cowersyetspeaks) He prefers making his own stories now; once uponatime there was a Mommy, a Daddy, a child, and a not-nice Ghost who ate people! Another parent accepting death in wartime An- other found breathing beneath rubble, on the sixth day. The husband spills seed on her belly. The cut-glass sphere breaks open the light. Rain- bows -volving on the walls. Things existing Not existing. Wished-for. Despite. ____ Among the events referred to here: the lighting of a Yahrzeit candle, the Iranian earthquake, my son's fourth birthday, the constant presence of our current war, repeated demands for readings of Georgie and the Noisy Ghost. |