Ghosts

I am a ghost
in a house of dry flowers
where a piano once 
was played.

Now no floorboard creaks
for stockinged feet
and a soundless hum of light
plays in every glass.

We calculate in years.

Cabinets broken by the clumsy
tools of time,
empty as dead wombs,
save a feathered fox
fit only now
for Halloween.

I haunt these halls
where silent parties sit
alone,
clasping and unclasping
small unpainted hands
alone,
her fleeting treasures thrown.
A pile of unwaxed fruit.

And now I lock
my fingertips in empty air
to turn the key of time.

Upstairs
beneath a tidy bed
a dreaming watch awakes
runs counter clock
and as the tilting planet
falls upward to her feet

I see her smile at me
the flaming sun
once more arising
from her hair

then
through a mouth
of scalding stars
we might disappear.