Sometimes the body
is a house with many doors
and many drawers, most of them
locked. Someone barred access
who knows how long ago—
with a padlock and key, a sign
to not go there, a pile of heavy
furniture clogging the hallway.
It may not be the drama of some
tyrant hiding the bodies of all
the wives that did not work out
in an upper room, or the story
of a curse handed down from one
age to another, for anyone who dares
transgress the boundary. But this is how
ghosts are born— or where they continue
to re-live hurts, walking barefoot over the same
gravel roads year after year. I want to take their hands
in mine and lead them to a space looking out
onto water or the hills, comb their matted hair, wipe
the grime off their cheeks. I want to sit down beside them
doing nothing, really—and just let the evening wash over us.