Issue 23 | Fall 2019

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.

Filed under: Poetry

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.