I was raised by ghosts,
some more corporeal
than others.
Flicking in the wake of reality,
pages in books
offered comforting susurration,
assurances of stability.
Static and cyclical
people I knew and never met
whispered their yearnings,
their furies and failings,
lessons for lives
barely like mine.
They slept on bookshelves
in attic alcoves and hallways,
scattered in disorder
only in bedrooms
where other ghosts
would reside. On weekends
and holidays, in my mother’s room,
a poltergeist with bear-hugs
and piggyback rides,
trips to church
and chores to assign, would haunt
the Monday – Friday lives
he had left behind.
Beyond my mother’s room,
their room,
he ultimately ventured,
and I retreated,
my books shelter
from his presence
the same as from his absence,
from the spit-polished aura of calm
surrounding his tarnished wife,
from the infinitesimal tears
I felt on my bindings.

(with thanks to Kelly Norman Ellis)