Ghost

n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear

—Ambrose Bierce

Grief-drunk girl taught to swallow the silt
of her leafy dread, spoon-fed like most kids

a diet of small deaths—cats and granddads, a
missed hemstitch—but then the hammer-squash

in sophomore year of dead best friend.
On a grainy 80s phone line, I learn of last

rites, last efforts, surgical teams, an accidental
mix of medicines, shuffled blame that

couldn’t undo the bulbous bloom of a teen
girl’s yellow and black heart, unwitting propeller

of poisoned brew. That’s when
he first shared them, Dad’s two rules:

Rule #1—life is never fair.
Rule #2—you can’t change Rule #1.

I’d lived with them for twenty years
by the afternoon the social worker

leaned against the granite-topped vanity
said she worried I was crying too much

as I lay, ordered still, in a hospital room
across from the one where, not a year

ago, I lost a son. I don’t tell her about the dreams
a second ghost child pushed out of me. Instead

I endure her advice: try to be positive, don’t stress
and remember, because one child didn’t live

doesn’t mean it will happen again.