All the ghost talking & Cross my heart
Sage Ravenwood
Poetry
All the ghost talking
Back turned to the spray, hands
sluicing water and soap from my hair.
The shower’s whispered tapping on porcelain.
A radio announcer’s monotone
static pulses from the bedroom;
I don’t own a radio or alarm clock.
Excited voices rise and fall
through the open window.
No one is outside when I check.
Repeated knocks at the door, light taps
rounded out by heavy knuckle thumps.
Towel wrapped, wet footprints follow
close behind me down the stairs.
There’s an empty sunlit porch
on the other side of the peephole.
I turn to find curious dogs watching.
Heads cocked, questioning.
They never barked once, did they?
Hair and body still dripping wet
crisscrossing footprints trailing upstairs.
In the mirror my reflection has an unhinged jaw,
mouth open in a mute scream. I tilt my head
imitating my dogs and wait for her
shriek to break through the fog.
I don’t hear a thing.
But you will, won’t you?
From somewhere laughter tinkles,
a small bell ringing from a throat.
I smile at the memory of that laugh.
Rumbled cadence beside me in the dark.
Our after-midnight porch sitting tired language
floating between us; we don’t have
to look at each other to know
what the other is saying.
I can’t hear myself, but I hear you
babbling in every room in this house,
coming up the driveway,
shouting over water from
the other side of the shower curtain.
There are ghosts in my head.
cross my heart
A synthetic rendered cocoon of
polyester evades childlike awareness
Tranquility cradled in a silken pillowcase
Lay your face on a knucklebone pillow
Delicate fingers stretched palm flat
stay awake as long as possible
Right hand small stones protruding beneath
skin hard-pressed into jawline
Strands of long hair wrapped indelicately
in a neck and shoulder chokehold
Left hand cross under right wrist
Gripping right shoulder chin nestled into wrist
From memory a nurse jerking a pillow
from beneath a child’s head
If you closed your mouth you wouldn’t drool
Iron-flat pillow braced between knees
pressed tight under ribcage jutting elbows
arms crossed x barred chest
Name the jagged edged bone comforts
Elbows Shoulder blades Knucklebones
Cross my heart I really don’t hope to die
Memory is a needle in my eye
I don’t drool anymore
I can fold myself up against the night
said the little girl to the woman after surgery
waking to slants of sunlight through blinds
It’s a neat trick isn’t it I taught us
from the bad place
Cross my heart hope won’t die
Sage Ravenwood is a deaf Cherokee woman residing in upstate NY with her two rescue dogs, Bjarki and Yazhi, and her one-eyed cat Max. She is an outspoken advocate against animal cruelty and domestic violence. Her work can be found in Glass Poetry - Poets Resist, The Temz Review, Contrary, trampset, Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Pioneertown Literary, Grain, Sundress Press anthology - The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry, The Rumpus, Lit Quarterly, PØST, Massachusetts Review, Savant-Garde, ANMLY, River Mouth Review, Native Skin Lit, Santa Clara Review, The Normal School, Pinhole Poetry, UCity Review, Punk Noir, Janus Literary, Jelly Bucket, Colorado Review, Pangyrus, PRISM International, 128 Lit, and more.