I saw a ghost today.
A shadow in the shrubbery
a lurker behind the shed.
A floater in the corner of my eye
or am I growing a cataract
like everyone I know
mistaking angels for ghosts
seeing something where there’s nothing.
My father said he had a guardian angel
and his name was Joseph.
Father talked to Joseph.
Such intimacy, like the whisper of a lover.
Maybe I have one too.
Call me a cynic—I looked it up.
But why wasn’t Joseph watching over him
when he lost two fingers in an auger.
Or when he rammed a nail up his foot—
a rambunctious boy—
and nearly died of blood poisoning.
I thought I saw a ghost today.
An anomaly in the fog
A lurker in the lilacs
A shadow in the shrubbery
a lurker behind the shed.
A floater in the corner of my eye
or am I growing a cataract
like everyone I know
mistaking angels for ghosts
seeing something where there’s nothing.
and his name was Joseph.
Father talked to Joseph.
Such intimacy, like the whisper of a lover.
Maybe I have one too.
But why wasn’t Joseph watching over him
when he lost two fingers in an auger.
Or when he rammed a nail up his foot—
a rambunctious boy—
and nearly died of blood poisoning.
An anomaly in the fog
A lurker in the lilacs
When in the doorway bloomed.
Do I just flat out ask—
Hey! What’s your name?
Written for Shay's Word Garden using words from her word list taken from "The Waste Land and Other Poems" by TS Eliot. And for d'Verse's Open Link Night (with a little twist of Whitman's lilac). And it's a secret (for Poets & Storytellers United) I guess I don't mind telling now as my father is with Joseph.