not just family and friends,
could visit us?
What if we’re their mouthpieces,
reliving interrupted dreams,
imagining them as our own?
What if those we admire
have unfinished business,
and stories to tell, and so
they steer us closer to the heart,
so that we, the living,
can bring closure to the dead?
Picture Harriet Tubman,
her head in a vise, dreaming
of the open road, dreaming
of following the stars north
towards the heart of winter,
the adamantine stars weeping.
And what if we sing coded songs,
having forgotten what they stood for,
the drinking gourd corked with a star.
Sometimes I imagine the dead
slumbering beside me,
with such stories to tell,
that I wake up, forgetting all the words,
each fragment crenulating itself
into fanciful constellations
and when I wake up, all I remember
is a scrabbled handful of stars
thrown against the horizon of sleep.
6/22 Write On! Susie Terence
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