Ghost

Ghost

I.
She does not come till later,
not that summer, my twelfth, not until
after Camp Kanata’s mess hall
where I nibbled at grilled cheese,
vegetable soup, sipped the watery bug juice.
I popped Dexatrim at wooden tables,
popped them sitting thick in grass,
on a hill overlooking the lake,
where the kids push each other into cold water,
muddied a milky, silt-soaked tobacco color,
water to which many
have lost me.

II.
Many have lost me
or I become
lost to them.
Later I might have thrown bags of peanuts at you, hit you
square in the temple.
Maybe I’ll throw my 32-ounce Mountain Dew
in your acne-scarred face.
Perhaps I’ll drink too much,
make out with too many boys,
forget you
exist.  Then, underneath you,
my face hidden from yours, cradling you
the way a bird’s nest cradles her delicate eggs,
I’ll breakdown, tell
my hysterical tale of betrayal,
answer every question honestly.

III.
Question honestly
how “a” gets to “g,” how
we move effortlessly
between moments, navigating ourselves from the present
to eighteen years ago,
back to today, and then
to later, when I have no
questions, and I am in your arms.

IV.
I am in your arms,
face buried in your shoulder,
staining your shirt with my salty regret.
I listen anxiously every time your phone rings.
My family does not call.
I spend a lot of time sitting alone
in a plastic lawn chair,
on the concrete block you call a porch.
Lively, lit voices carry from inside
but I don’t hear them.
My knuckles are white from gripping my beer bottle,
my hands unsteady. 
They shake like a Parkinson’s patient’s.
I clench the bottle tighter,
afraid I’ll drop it
and everything will break.

V.
Everything will break:
while I’m on a Greyhound bus,
sipping bourbon and apple juice;
while flipping through fashion mags,
earphones on,
mountain music playing at the beginning of green foothills;
while I arrive at the bus station in Asheville;
while I sit on Annah’s front porch,
the phone clutched in my clenched fist;
while Jordan, Justin, and Dave walk up the porch steps;
while my face, in shock,
is streaked with mascara tears;
everything will break.

VI.
We will open the other pint of Maker’s Mark,
a bottle of red wine.
We will cook vegetarian fajitas and burritos.
I will struggle to choke them down.
I will struggle to smile at my saviors and still
She does not come till later.

VII.
She does not come till later,
until apologies are made. 
Until the harsh words, criticism,
raised voices,
are forgotten.
Until I begin to see her silky silver hair,
to remember her creased hands turning
creased pages of worn books,
and the chintz sofa I lay on, my head in her lap.
She does not come till later.

copyright 2006 Katherine Andrews