Ghost
He lingers in my dreams, his way
with words, the stories he told, the twisted
stick he used to weed out his demons,
his reverence for the smallest things
like fly swats from torn window screens,
hemmed and handled with a bent coat hanger,
or the silver sundial from a well-placed
dot of paint. I saw him once seize a bee
in mid-flight, hold it between thumb
and forefinger. He studied it a while
then watched it fly away, like women
who had come and gone, claimed his calloused
skin didn’t feel a thing. I saw mourning
in his eyes. I picture him sitting
in the shade slicing his red leather skin
to release bad blood the way a poet
uses a pen to transmute poison,
I think of him whittling from his high porch,
feet dangling over piles of cedar shavings
like discarded words, carving out his niche
in the only way he knows, pretties
hanging from his roof to ward off haints.
Read Donna McClanahan's previous work in Still
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