Cobweb Lullaby

in silk threaded webbing which reaches precariously from rosebush to fence,
ghost women lay their babies to sleep-
in some other reality, not too removed from ours, you can just make out
the slow murmuring shadows of song…
they weigh out their days on both hands as though they were scales of time
not meant for anyone’s memory but their own-
recalled only in archaic photographs that have gone brown, curled at the edges
with their faded smiles.

remember me, won’t you?
holding our breath past the graveyard, counting steps…. kicking into a run
when our laughter could no longer contain us
how i pressed my mouth to the hollow of your temple as we wove our fingers together,
wandering past all those dimly lit houses gone silent with twilight
and how, far up the block, they became abandoned dollhouses with rolling sidewalks
reaching straight to your door-

like the light above your porch, i will be-
a firefly trapped in the mason jar…. you’ll catch my flicker occasionally,
rattling door knobs, tapping walls…. moving the planchette on the Ouija board-
keep me not in shoeboxes beneath the bed, alone with dust ridden cobwebs
i’ll still be the girl you’ve known all along, riding my bike down the road where you lived
or barefoot and brazen, one leg through your window humming….
i will love you always….. so remember me, won’t you?