They Appear from Nowhere

“What is Past is Prologue.”
The Tempest.


It's the young ghosts that
haunt us most.

A vison of my 6-year-old self,
looking up from a basement window
at the gray pavement above my head.

It scared me then and still does.

One dead-eyed day in a wintery city
I saw a man without a coat
crouched and shivering,
the coat that he did not wear that day
I wore at that time.
The more I looked, the more I understood.

Such younger ghosts are spectral preludes,
phantoms of our psyche,
sealed into a setting, just large enough
for them to relive forever
a one-act play
of our soul-etched moments.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2024

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