My daughter wants to talk
about ghosts and I tell her
they aren’t real, just a way for people
to scare themselves into behaving properly—
but what is properly and why should we care?
and how it all goes back to Adam and Eve
how wanting
to know is the bad thing
and a ghost scares you back into your place
of ignorance and once
on jury duty I heard the victim talk
about keeping her ghosts close
although she was in the hospital so long
she nearly became a ghost herself
and my daughter
is talking about turning into a ghost
with a sheet and scissors
or maybe tulle and some glitter
and where to put the candy if a ghost has no pockets?
knowledge has its own pockets, I say
Eavesdropping
A woman’s voice rises above the sun
calling to God, and she sounds disgusted.
The music from her iPhone changes to a romantic
big band smoosh, and I’m someone’s darling now.
I remember this beach so vividly,
the sand all over my legs, gulls cawing
and you saying “I’m with you.”
We held hands and stared at scuffling fronds
of pine. Sea air crystallized on our skin.
Trumpets swung in the background, and you
thrilled me when you talked about the future.
This is not a place for poets, except
for eavesdroppers like me, thieving,
weighing all words equally, dispassionately.
These Monterey cypress trees are so twisted
and torn; I imagine their tendons
screaming in fierce wind.
My throat freezes as I gasp in the salt air.
We couldn’t have been so separated.
Shouldn’t. Crooning music pulls me to sleep,
and only my thirst keeps me alert.
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Siân Killingsworth is the author of Hiraeth (Longship Press, 2024). She has been published in Columbia Poetry Review, Roi Fainéant Press, Stonecoast Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist), and elsewhere, including When There Are Nine, a Ruth Bader Ginsburg tribute anthology. Siân is the Social Media Manager for the Rise Up Review. She holds an MFA from The New School.