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Ghosts
DeAun jordan
Night folds in on itself,
locked tight in this room's repose.
but shadows to listen,
gone?
There's no one here
Where have you gone, Mother?
Do you know my secrets now,
in memory's insomniac spirals?
(My thoughts glide over,
slide under the lid of the piano,
play a tw1e or two).
whispers
that say sleep, sleep
or cmne to me
(woven in thought)
Do you know the spirit of the child I lost?-have you welcomed her
with a receiving blanket?
If I could I'd take you both home again, into my body,
(you begged me to in the end)
and wrap you up in quilts Grandma stitched
with her craggy fingers
humming to herself in her deafness ...
T she there with you? Have all my mothers
29
or where have you
(from patches of old dresses,
tablecloth and lace)
(the old women,
cradled in their graves)