Myth Still Happens

Say she calls the dead
only if copper calls lightning
or north calls geese,
this starving churchmouse with sleepwalker's eyes
hugging her skirts like a salvage of bones.
Say the saints she prays to
are cracked as mirrors,
her cross the blackened rust of a winter tree.
Say she will draw the ghosts from you
only as time draws tears
or soldiers draw fire,
winding the world away down her silent stare
until not even the memory of their loss lingers
like a cobweb on your skin, a scratch on the glass,
a stranger's gaze persisting
you have left the wrong haunting behind.

"Clear" originally published in the Not One of Us Special Publication Coping (ed. John Benson), January 2014.