Coraddi Magazine

The Moon Ghost
Asha Gowan

Love: I invoke her like a goddess tonight
as I weave by the window but the wind is hollowand my faith is a dream.

The sky, voiceless.

Love is a mute ghost, a glassy eyed doppelganger lingering by the hillside granger.

And in the daffodil beds. And by my bedpost – spreading its lonely vaporsin all the places we’ve been.

Miasma.

I fan them away, try not to breathe them so deeply in.The ship that would have sent him my letters has lifted anchor.

I worry I dealt a blow to the bond
we’ve been spinning since our dear isle.
Love stares up at me from the lilies

and the unmoving eyes wink with light from the moon he and I loved together.

Be gone you wicked wraith. Take this burden from me. I wish to worry
and weep no more.

But the misty thing drifts back to the edge of my bed and urges me to sing a sea chantey.

Love is stubborn
and seldom leaves the living be.