After Three Days, Ghost's Fever Breaks, and: Awaking from Nightmares, Ghost Hangs His Laundry, and: At the Plaça del Rei, Ghost Acknowledges One of His Own
Rent from DeepDyve- After Three Days, Ghost's Fever Breaks, and: Awaking from Nightmares, Ghost Hangs His Laundry, and: At the Plaça del Rei, Ghost Acknowledges One of His Own
After Three Days, Ghost's Fever Breaks
Deep beneath wool coat and blanket,heavy shirt, in the dream not a dreamyou are Cristóbal Colón, malarial, fatallast voyage to new world made old,sea unconquered and unimpressed.When God speaks you listen—his taunts,
the barren puniness of your discovery.Gradations of light in the shuttered cabinsignal day and night, ordinary trickof time, theatre of shadow across closed eyes.In the dream not a dream you are Christ,wasted features stained to damp sheet,
relic for fortune hunters. Breath, heartbeat,pulse in wounded hands and feet.Hour, instant, distorted flash of longing—woman's warm thigh against your own,hand on your face, the home you leftagain and again—why?—until no map
could guide you back. Hour, instant, flash—childhood bicycle, your brother, angry,skull of horns and the ceaseless parade,all coffins. When you reach across darknessfor water, the table rattles, the bowl is dry.Rebelling bones, bag of flesh, chameleon
tongue licking blood clean from lips.Exactly now, or then, the tomb of the bodyrelents, just a little. Another eternity.You sit upright dragging an altar of rags. [End Page 71] Now or then, you decide to stand,and some time or other do so. Mummy,
priest of patches, shuffle to windows.Dare yourself to unlatch them. What day?Sure enough, there the brick archwayof the courtyard, shattered sculptures.Miracle of fire risen in the east, cool wind,palms straining toward their hosannas.
Awaking from Nightmares, Ghost Hangs His Laundry
Horrible, most horrible, and common.Crimes of your own conceptionagainst all, it seems, who dared love you,
scenes that can't die quickly enoughin the irradiating day. It didn't happen,or not much, or that you recall, so why
the net of horrors dredged nightly?Were you such, or feared or longedto be? Untangling a knot of garment helps.
Sunlight warm on morning, wrensand sparrows to their work, damp grass.Threadbare socks just so, each according
to design and matching other.Hung pants collapsed and amputated.Best the shirts. Empty, reaching arms, [End Page 72]
their stitching worn, yes. But dark cloth—fabric spun from earth—enrobingair, burned lighter each moment,
gentle sail to all held and released,insinuation of the body that was Ghost,its terrors and longings—then nothing.
At the Plaça del Rei, Ghost Acknowledges One of His Own
The skinny boys clenched in wet T-shirtssee neither of you. Scarecrow, old graybeard,prophet, pariah. Ghost. Little remainsbut the blue fire of his eyes, steady on you.
He adjusts a box to keep ankles and bloodiedpant legs dry. The gargoyles, gleeful,disgorge filthy torrents. You lean hardin the archway but slanting rain
numbs you anyway. Here, Columbuscame with bounty for his queen—rare birds,sweet potatoes, six captive Haitians, baptized.Tonight the square is a graveyard,
flood of five brutal and buried centuries.The teens make a hopeless run for it.Just you and scarecrow, his bed of cardboardand stone. He nods, explains nothing. [End Page 73]
When you offer the shekels from your pocket,four dull coins, he opens a dirty handto take them. Then him to his journey,you to yours, the relentless night ahead. [End Page 74]
Gaylord Brewer founded and edits the journal Poems & Plays. His eighth book of poetry is Give Over, Graymalkin (Red Hen P). He teaches at Middle Tennessee State University.
