Some ghosts are my mothers

neither angry nor kind

their hair blooming from silk kerchiefs.

Not queens, but ghosts

who hum down the hall on their curved fins

sad as seahorses.

 

Not all ghosts are mothers.

I’ve counted them as I walk the beach.

Some are herons wearing the moonrise like lace.

Not lonely, but ghostly.

They stalk the low tide pools, flexing

their brassy beaks, their eyes.

 

But that isn’t all.

Some of my ghosts are planets.

Not bright. Not young.

Spiraling deep in the dusk of my body

as saucers or moons

pleased with their belts of colored dust

& hailing no others.