My ghosts and I have it backwards—I do all the haunting and they want to be left alone. Can’t I have what I’ve been promised? Amen and amen and so forth? I just wanted the hem of your robe. If not, closure. My nerves never tangled into the sound of your voice. I could stay mad forever. I repeat: I’m trying to stay open to the possibility that I’ll always be disappointed. I’ve been a ghost since the brown bungalow with mice in the walls, when I pulled all the blankets off all the beds. Look at me: fever and open field. Kaveh said heaven is any place that’s a place; Rachel said the sight of God’s face would kill me. Is this why I’ve stopped praying but can’t stop talking? This time, when there is a question, let there be an answer. I haven’t asked for too much. Just this morning, I taught myself to sing. When my children call for me, I appear. How quickly I out-mothered God.
Amanda Roth is a writer, folklorist, and multimedia artist. Her poetry has appeared in Portland Review, Okay Donkey, Poetry South, Whale Road Review, West Trestle Review, and elsewhere. She lives and dreams near the Salish Sea.
Image: hymnary.org
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Heavy Feather Review 