Troubling the Marrow

She admits she is haunted, but does so softly, as if she really believes spirits will overhear her, spirits that neither she nor I believe in. I’m haunted, too, but standing before a window, its glass all that separates us, keeps us safe from the spirits we could never imagine swirling upward like protoplasmic spectral

Like waves on the mediterranean your little shrieks roll ahead of your feet, watched over by foreign pine trees, and when you chase them, like doves they take off to the blue skies of my father’s youth. Your little eyes and ears clamber up my story line; fascination sits on your eyebrows like a wild

–For Maanakwadiban The forest huddles over our town like a mama bear protecting her cub. There’s no traffic light, just an endless debate about whether or not we need one. Everyone knows everyone else, with nicknames like Weeders, Pug, Cricket, and Beebeeosh, their given names long forgotten.  We know whose relatives are whose, who’s gone