First, a reminder to those who chew glass.
In polite company, one doesn’t mention
the dead who visit; the nebulous possessives.
Still a small part of me wonders why
they inhabit a region of my mind at all
as if a discomfort imprinted
by the cane of the chair I sit on or
grit in the memory of an oyster.
An oyster does not choose the grit
but it gets under the skin and later
the flaw made, becomes a shiny pearl.
Are the nebulous a kind of grit
sunning itself in a gravel pit, waiting
to be a flaw? I put this for you
against your wonders.
I am never alone. Sometimes memories
happen because I let them. I light the grass
for the heat of the burn.
The once-lived could traverse and visit a
valley I’ve never been, not on the road to me.
They should fledge new wings
and mingle with insects, merge with
their miniature minds in company with
each other and monster me no more.
Can anyone guess or imagine why they
cling and devil me? Start with year after
year of their whispers. Start with that grit.
Donna Best has published in anthologies, newspapers and journals in USA, UK, Philippines and Australia and broadcast on radio stations, awarded ‘Firsts’ for her poetry by an arts festival and a state-wide ekphrasis challenge in Australia as well as The Ekphrastic Review.