in shadow she trailed shadow.
when i turned to face her,
she weaved between the mottled,
peeling trunks of sycamores
back the way we had come
then dissolved like last notes
of a radio’s static nocturne
into the high cattails
and banked morning fog.
i had enjoyed the night,
the pursuit, and was sorry
to see her go.
you and i met
the next summer,
your approach the pop
and flash of filament burning out,
a burst impressing the closed eye
with a promise of daybreak
even as it scatters the flurry
of moths, brings the narrow porch
to dark and cool.
today, a decade
of summers gone, while you shut off
lamps and drew down blinds, i stood
on our front step. looking back
into the shaded hall, i half expected
you weren’t there.
but out of the dimness,
your shape and strut.
you brushed past me,
led us down the street
where the sun radiated
from tracts of asphalt,
where pine boards nailed
across cavities in the brick
swelled and warped,
where in the oven air
picked-over meat on rib bones
turned seeping and sour.
you led
and did not disappear,
remained with me in this:
the too-bright world.
from Ghost, like a PlaceFind more by Iain Haley Pollock at the library
Copyright © 2018 Iain Haley Pollock
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.