Séance
They asked me who I would speak with
if I would speak with one who was dead.
My first thought was of you.
So was my second
and my fifth.
I would sacrifice almost anything
but I worry.
I worry you’ll see a collection
of mistakes where a granddaughter
once stood — that the young girl, the young woman
you used to know would be like so
many other things in my life —
gone.
My eyes replaced by a stranger
you don’t want to know.
I worry you’ll only see the
seams where my broken edges
have been shoved together and not
see those seams are bound with gold,
that their jaggedness only appears
at a distance — they would no more
draw your blood than would a feather.
I worry you would dress me in
your disappointment, a cloak I
could never hang upon the hook.
I worry, but I would risk this
and more for the lottery’s odds you’ll
look to me instead and say,
“There’s my sweetheart. Oh, how I’ve missed you.”
