Down at the shore, the lonely child plays
With her ghosts, and a little ways up the slope
One of her older ghosts builds a careful fire
With just the right amount of proper kindling.
The evening sun soars through him like a sail.
Higher still on the unseen highways, the trucks
Can be heard rumbling by, making a passing
Sound, something like a series of short trains
Or staccato jet planes, a whoosh, a small quiet,
Another whoosh, and a grrrrr every little while.
It’s not yet high migration time. A few ducks,
A few blackbirds in the reeds, but the lake
Is mostly empty, and the handful of campers
At the sites along the margins haven’t launched
A single one of their towed rowboats. The child
Does not realize, hasn’t the faintest clue
That she, like the blackbird in his epaulettes,
Like the ducks on the margins, like the campers,
The old shadow tending his smokeless fire,
The highway, the trucks, is not here right now,
Is only lonely like all of us and playing with ghosts
Because she also is one of us, one of the ghosts.
Words have no choice except to haunt us.
Words have only, ever, afterlife, and float.
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