Inertia

            by Doris Doud

This house is too small
room too small,
window small,
the air supply runs low.

Always in the background
a loud intrusive drone
of television. Bob Villa,
Bart Simpson, Tony Little,
stalk me through closed doors
preventing sleep or concentration
and the rage is building – building.

Rain falls still, inside and out
trapping me with the TV,
empty bank account, four-cylinder
car that runs on three,
disobedient body,
a million heavy feet standing on
my oxygen supply line.

The flickering blue light
of ten o’clock news washes
across your face creating an odd
underwater effect. How could you
fail to notice you are drowning?

How could I fail to notice
I’m alone? If only one of us
were strong enough
to pull the plug.

GHOSTS

            by Jeff Rath

When she leaves, it will be because
you have driven her away
with your fears, your anger, your indifference.

Armed with that secret knowledge
all women have of men,
she will be a little sorry for you,
a bit puzzled
by your self-destructive nature.

She will become a ghost,
like all the others
who have left the key to the house of your life
on the kitchen table.

But you will not be free of her,
just as you are still possessed by the others.
They rattle around the circumference of your days
like a marble in a jar.
At night you hear them
moving about the livingroom and the hallway.
Their scent clings to pillows and bed clothes,
their voices follow you like footsteps
down the stairwell of your sleep.
In dreams they all return,
like a Greek chorus,
with cryptic messages on their lips.
Often they are kind,
their wounds are hidden by a grace
that will always confound you.

And now this one appears,
on the periphery of those dreams,
watching the others,
mouthing their words
as if rehearsing a part.

And she holds the truth
like a tea cup
in the soft nest of her palms,
and breathes on the fragile porcelain vessel
before spreading her hands
and letting it drop
to smash about her feet like a scream.

Here she will turn
with no sign of movement,
all emotion drained from her face,
and, over her shoulder,
she will clearly say:
“You have always wondered
what it was we saw in you.
Perhaps you should have concerned yourself more
with what we did not find.”