Egg and Ash

by Anne Barngrover

Sometimes a ghost is not a ghost
but a sink of water filled to the brim.

My friend’s dog whines in rusty
circles as she paints over the nicotine

stains that her husband left behind.
I spend too much on too little

in sympathy until it’s not. Each spring,
tiny losses fizz the pond’s electric

scrim. Birds feel it first—eggshells
litter the sidewalk in snapped chalk

and blue, those marbles full of rain.
If a ghost cannot follow by its nature

then what voices keep in these walls?
Their sound is sugar grains dissolving.

Their sound is a mouth of broken teeth
that still remembers meat and bone.

White and Rain

Sometimes a ghost is not a ghost
but a trail of white footprints

down a hall. From Ohio to Florida
valleys flood with mud and salt

the magnolia flowers dirty as wet
newspapers, too heavy for arms.

Brides dip backwards, feet perfect
as snails. Damp cakes are cut

into squares. West of Mississippi
heat lightning sizzles like the grass.

Drought makes us lighter and I
can see through everything now:

sparrow bones, possum bones,
bones of your heart wound tight

as a clock, its key a rain-shaped
word I don’t yet understand.