Ghost Story

She feels a being, stealthy and languid.
Someone in the room, but not, someone watches her.
She slid the saffire sweater over her head. Her eyes
are drawn to the blood red splatters across the cowl.
She needs a bath, the laundry can wait.  She turned
the hot water on and let it run over her, clear her head.
She can't lose her nerve now.  She's home free.

Her body feels like fire but she scrubs the blood
from her hair, lets it bubble down the drain.  She was cleansed.
She steps into the bedroom wrapped in a towel.
There on the bed lie her clothes and across the sheet,
written in scarlet letters was the epitaph,
Bloodshed in red,
you’ll wish you were dead.

Ghost

My son walks at my side, sometimes behind me, too.
He’ll whisper to me in the wind, or on a lady bug’s wings,
or even a penny, heads up. It all fills me with joy
when I know he’s there, and I do know.

Sometimes he’s in the wind, caressing my face and lets
me know he is there, he is here, he is with me still. He makes
me laugh like he used to, even though its through tears.

Though unable to accept that presense at first I welcome
It now after years of emptiness and longing. Such a surreal,
unsure part of him here with me. I can’t summon him, want
him hard enough, beg or plead. He comes when he thinks
I need him. Gives me beads of wisdom and crowns of joy
just for a moment, but they last always. I can summon
them up… Remember the first time he told me he was ok.
The first time he walked into my home with that laugh
that presence, that joy that was only his to give. Remember
the time he told me that he was only unhappy when I was.

I know how this sounds. I know. But I also know the truth
when I hear it, see it and feel it… it’s truth, my truth.