APPARITION

 

The ghost has arrived on time or almost

But seems in no hurry to begin his routine

He blinks a few times, stretches, looks out

The open window at the night where a bird

And a bat are hospitably sharing a branch.

"Well," says the woman sitting bolt upright

(She rarely sits any other way) on her bed

"Can we get on with it? Let's see some haunting!

I'm prepared to be harrowed; I'm more than ready

To experience agonies of remorse or grief. My heart

Is resigned to burning in my breast; my soul

Has prudently taken a holiday. My nerves, though, 

Cannot long abide this foolish delay."

MOVING

 

Through a crack in the frame the image of my father

Makes his way out of the picture.  He's in

No hurry to make his escape; he knew that someday 

There'd be just such a crack. He means

To check on folks in other pictures, perhaps

Seeing how his folks are doing in that photo

Taken at a seder in 1947 but pauses,

Waiting for my mother's image to come with him.

BOREAS

 

The North Wind has been taking subtlety lessons

From the old women who practice tai chi

Behind the Federal Courthouse on Centre Street.

After holding himself infinitely still He

Gently flicks the uttermost end of one thin branch.

ANOTHER MUSE

 

Hesychia, silence's muse, can be found

Just where she's been since 1928, living

With her pet, a rust-colored spider

In a small room in Elmira, New York. 

The rest of the house has been gone

For many years so visitors must first climb

The memory of a staircase, avoiding

The middle of third one from the top

Which always squeaked.

VISIONS

 

Daruma never 

Sleeps

Doesn't even close

His eyes.

The dreams

He doesn't have

Wander about or

Put themselves up 

For sale.

You sometimes find

Crowds of them by

The vanished gates

Of the old Yoshiwara

QUELLER

 

I bought the demon queller

When I was ten because

I had a dollar and its orangeness

Appealed to me. It was meant

To quell Japanese demons

But mischance had brought it

To a Brooklyn giftshop.

American demons, thinking it's

One of their own, imitate

It's lidless glare and leave it gifts.

Mostly resigned, it sometimes dreams

A Japanese demon will turn up --,

Perhaps trying to sell me something --

And find itself quelled.

UNDOING

 

It wasn't the weaving

She'd miss so much

As the unweaving

The unpatterning.

Long night hours

The light of a candle

Held by a maid

(Later hung 

Her pale legs kicking)

If the sly king

Had drowned at sea

She'd have learned

To unspin wool

Unshear sheep

Unstring minutes

Hoping another Penelope

Might string them again

String them better.