Photo by Christine Roy on Unsplash
I’ve been talking to ghosts most of my life.
Sometimes they tell me things I don’t understand, like
Do you know a Venus day is longer than a Venus year?
I hear this and just feel confused.
What is real? What, imagined?
How do i know what is true?
When to stay . . .
Again, like last night and the night before, I am flying, low, a few feet above the treetops, hovering like a helicopter, but in a soaring swoop, the hawk zigzagging in search of prey. And like last night and the night before, I spy my mother far below, distant, pointing up, calling to me, not angry but pleading. And like last night and the night before I pause, a dragonfly that flits above the water, the hummingbird that pauses to sip nectar, and I laugh and laugh and laugh. No one can reach me—
i dreamt about ben again tonight, same scene, same outcome . . . i’ve gone to the movies, alone as always. sat on the aisle, back right. except i’ve moved one seat in, as though i expect him. and, just after the previews, a man slips into the seat. he says nothing. or rather, he simply leans into my ear whispers i’m here and ever-so-lightly kisses the crescent above my earring, nuzzles into my hair. it’s electric, the contact. he begins a circle of soft kisses across my cheeks and forehead, weaves his hand into my hair, pulls me, pulls me. and then we’re lip to lip, tasting and i’m kissing back like i’m starving. at some point he pulls me into his chair, between his legs, my back pressed to his chest, and he folds his arms around me. we are pressed together, he kissing my neck or rubbing my ear between whispers you’re so beautiful . . . i’ve wanted to do this for so long . . . stay with me over and over and over. i’ve closed my eyes so i can feel everything. we don’t see the movie, but when the credits roll i get up and walk. up the aisle. through the lobby. out the door. i get into my car, pull out, and don’t look back—
in the shadow i cast on the pavement
i am slim and long and curved like a statue
venus the neighborhood goddess
shadows hide knobby veins, a roadmap of creases
the riverbed crinkling out like the mississippi delta around my eyes
the mirror sends back an altered image
but in the dim light vibrant, rosy-cheeked and brimming
i fade into a box of mirror and shadow
amorphous forms stare back
i land in the middle of a bruce springsteen
party, the center of attention. patty peppers me
with questions: what’s your story? how do you know
the boss? and orders read us a poem!
until i don’t know, i don’t know, i don’t know
feels suspicious
it seems i’m famous, so i bare
my soul to strangers
i stumble in midscene, spectator at some kind of to-
the-death boxing match, a meeting that erupts from
zero to mach 10, a brothers’ stand-off. i wonder
how this can be happening when one of them is two
years’ dead. but here we are at some kind of family
social, and he’s kicking, scratching, punching,
grappling, and then yes, biting. i hear an unholy
scream, high-pitched, emanate from the living
brother, see a torn cheek, blood, the dead brother re-
securing his prey in a tearing bite worthy of a lion
ripping wildebeest flesh on the savannah. i stare,
frozen in tableau, unable to process what i see, nor
piece together how or why. but all at once i hear a
voice, hysterical, and understand the police are
being called. all at once, my daughter materializes,
we shout as one STOP! WE NEED TO GET OUT.
NOW! and through the fog of his rage, he must hear,
for he savages one last shredding chomp to his
brother’s impotent screams and shoves him away.
he pivots to follow us, sprinting, our girl in the lead.
she knows the way out. as if on a james bond set,
we fly through room after room, sealing each
passage with airlocks, like a submarine
compartment whoosh. reach a steel chamber. there’s
a swimming pool, luxurious bed and bath inside this
vault. i can’t understand where we are, but we are
clearly trapped. then our girl, so calm and steady,
says this is where dad and i stayed the last time we
were here. i know the code. she slips out a steel
spike, pushes it into newly exposed sockets, presses
buttons in sequence, and waits as a domed aperture
opens like a camera shutter’s eye. we are well down
the road before the police drive past us, heading for
what we left—
Conversation swirls around me. I sit in my camper and catch snippets. I try not to listen. The earnest father-son discussion of talents and futures. The vapid repartee of twenty-somethings. The banal exchanges between a couple as they organize and prepare dinner. The squeals of children. Words that float around me, as ethereal as I must be to all these traveling packs. My aloneness a palpable, breathing beast, it hangs like a bat slung up a tree, a weight on limbs that frightens little girls. As well I should. I squeeze those who fill my past away—
jay dreams of a viking funeral
his flaming boat sails
to the valkyries on a poem
i am a speck of dust
but each stripe on a grand canyon rock represents a year
millennia of basalt and granite and sandstone tell a story
eruptions
erosions
eras
a mighty river slices history
bare, sculptured
particles sparkle, afloat in the chasm’s air
Elizabeth Robin, a retired high school teacher, has two collections of poetry through Finishing Line Press: Where Green Meets Blue (2018) and Silk Purses and Lemonade (2017). A poet of witness and discovery, she relates both true and fictional stories about her Lowcountry present and world-traveling past. Also published in fiction and nonfiction, her work appears most recently in The Broadkill Review, i am not a silent poet, Blue Mountain Review, Good Juju, The Fourth River, Foliate Oak, and Reflections. Robin emcees a monthly open mic and partners with arts groups to bring literary programs to Hilton Head Island.