Ghosts - Leanne O Sullivan

Staring, with sheets covering
their faces, the ghosts stand
like a hive of mirrors.
You lie on a stone pillow and dread
the vision of them. One by one
they remember everything backwards.
One looks like your cold lover,
one like a bottle of sleeping pills
begging for the terrible need,
another stuns like a blade
piercing the numb surface of flesh,
shaving pores on the bone.
Terror flaps in the night wind.
They feed and drink on those howls,
claiming the screams they stare down.
Skin flickers in those horrible
cut-out eyes, where the living body
is carried back to place and time,
to the moment when a memory
was made with lead, when the first
taste of grief stuck in your throat.
As you build a table for new meals,
the ghosts wait for the time
when they can follow the tree-rings
back to the season of felling.