Memories of a Country House

 

Memories of a Country House

How did the ghost arrive at this impasse?
Like a blown glance the phantom has no mass.
It comes by watered routes of memory perhaps,
Or by the growing habit of a jonesing synapse.
A game of chess played by Her and Him
On a grid laid out on a gossamer scrim
That gently luffs and waves in a dead calm
And bellies up to the sky to taste the sunny balm.

The ghost that fills the silent sail with rage,
The blow that never came, what is the name?
Whose chest is pressed against the cage?
The one who comes and goes and flaps like a flame
Who halts before the rubble of my faults,
Divides, grows high and turns a waltz.