ghost as housekeeper
BY ANNAH BROWNING
I am always waving,
and sometimes clear.
Sometimes in the slick
at the bottom of a frying
pan, a cloud of fat.
All this evening under
the sofa I have lain
untwisting embroidery,
un-plaiting plaids. And
the brown back of it I have
faded, to strained tea,
arms polished as a tooth.
Your carelessness
is love to me—as I crease
the newspaper into
its new fallen shape,
a disrupted bird, print
rubbing until the names
are something only
I can read, just as only I
hear the water standing
in the pipes, gallons of it,
pressing—the only sign
the drips, surprisingly
articulate, a Braille
inside the wall.
I wish you could notice
the careful attention
I have given to your
bread—only the fairest
flowers, the green marvel
growing on the heel,
white and dusty.
Like marble, both light
and dark. One antique
spore, and all
can bloom—you say
you cannot eat it,
but I think mold feeds
you more—I want
to give you the silence
of its planet, its heart—
a center which
like mine, is nowhere,
yet increasing
all the time.
