Pleasant Ghosts
Wild tiger lilies swath the roadsides.
I look for the flash-and-die green light
of fireflies: electric diamond dust in the dark trees.
This night: another dream in which I discover
hidden rooms within hidden rooms
and well-placed objects from childhood I had forgotten completely:
a cloth doll, tin pail, jar of found feathers.
This house retains its pleasant ghosts—
in the spare bedroom, faint leaves
on the wall, under the pale pistachio paint.
And in a basement storage closet,
penciled notes on the wall.
What is it in us that seeks skin for skin’s sake?
At any rate, the morning was an invitation
and I answered it.
Natalie Homer’s recent poetry has been published in Barnstorm, The Cincinnati Review, The Boiler, Berkeley Poetry Review, Meridian, and others. She received an MFA from West Virginia University and lives in southwestern Pennsylvania.