Gabe Redel's Blog: FRYING POTATOES BLOG - Posts Tagged "figure-of-ghosts"

Figure of Ghosts
by Gabe Redel


I had it for a second
but I lost it.
It had come
as I let my mind find notes
after many months
of fighting.

It was a small jar
of wings
that I had found at the end.

The spirits bellied
back and forth
and curved under my ribs
and out of my mouth they came
and behind my eyes
they folded black sheets,
working carefully.

I felt it the same
as when
I wandered
with weaker legs,
shattered skin,
and sunglasses that patterned the sleeves of my shirt.

In those days
the men and women
who had painted holes in their bodies
to let the sun in and the light out
lived with me every day
and all night
and against what I did not recognize,
which was most things.

My friends would arrive
like pictures drawn on paper
and in would come the gray lines
and out would arrive the figure of ghosts.

And we would keep quiet
and it would yell
and we would talk as if
we were in the ground
carrying the life of the dead
when it was not an older generation
that had been in our hands
but our very own crew
who had put new faces
at the front of skulls and bones.