Revenant

 
The question was: Can elegy 
resurrect, reconnect us with 
the ghost? Yes, I said. 
                        In elegy 
we grieve, we mourn. Such mourning 
is a summoning through language 
of all the memories attached to 
the one
        being mourned. We piece
our grief together from the soft
brown leaves discarded by trees
at winter's approach, 
                      from soot-
colored shawls at dusk. We tune 
its song to the sharp tenor 
of everything 
              that cracks before 
falling through a vortex, ascribing 
to it a body, a spirit; manifestation
of what they were or might have done
had they continued 
                   in the world—
creases gathered on a shirt front,
half an oily thumbrint at the end 
of a rosary chain. Finger of light
that slid across 
                 the rim of a glass.
A still warm joint of meat, shadow
of a vein darkening near bone.