Waiting for the candle to stutter and my eyes to adjust
to the ink’s saline solution. The room holds its breath
in the dimming, a shadow theater of what we choose
to bury.
A choir of ghosts rises from the floorboards,
hungering for a wafer held too long under the tongue,
dissolving into nothing but memory and unsaid names.
They are predators of the womb,stalking the spaces,
where life was promised, haunting the quiet, hollowed-out,
architecture of the flesh.
Let us bow our heads in the damp dark.
Let us pray for their absolution,and for our own.
