and I was just going to go sing that Gertie house song

[fflo]

Father, Mother, Robert Henley who hanged himself in the ninth grade, et al.

I've sensed ghosts more than once,
    their presence
a kind of plucking from the memorious air.

Always they reveal themselves as lost,
    surviving
on what's loose in me, some last words

I never said, some I did. I've heard
    they can't live
if fully embraced, if taken fully in,

yet I do nothing but listen to their
    wingless hovering,
the everything they never say.

If only I could give them what they need,
    no, if only
I could convince myself these things

must die as naturally as apples
    on the apple tree...
but that's Nature, which is never

wrong, just thoughtless and without shame.


-- Stephen Dunn


x-posted to greatpoets