Not All Ghosts Are Mirrors

by Mair Allen

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Plastic bag, needle, spoon, these things
keep the ghost woman in the yard company,
and her own voice
quivering against the wood pile. 

I brush my teeth and track her 
apparition through the window,  
look down to spit in the sink and she’s gone.  

There are endless ways the world takes women, 
makes them disappear.  Why is she here?  
Because she is real, standing in the pink asters,
and I don’t want to erase her too.  

I imagine I wake 
in death, speechless—follow my family 
as they inventory dirty clothes
heaped knee high in the closet, 

vibrator half charged in bedside drawer, 
delicate ash of moth wings smudged 
on the wall, a note to myself:
Take Out The Trash.

Damp cotton with no desire attached;
their grief stuffs a dismal gag in my mouth.

In the funeral home my mirage hands 
wrap around a paper cup of tepid coffee, 
my empty shouts get mistaken 
for chronic tinnitus ringing against
the cochlea of the living.

I whisper roughly like the ocean
in a shell.  

The floral arrangement is a disappointment.

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Mair Allen is a writer living in Minneapolis, MN. They are an MFA candidate in creative writing at Antioch University. Their work can be found in Griffel, Oroboro, Kithe and Aurora. They were the 2020 winner of the Mikrokosmos poetry competition. Additionally they are a member of the editorial circle of NOYO review.