fantome

rose scent night takes the house

i sit in the front room

the world was made for the shroud

i am alone

but being alone know not peace

nor loneliness if such you call

for tonight is a night of ghosts

familial phantoms fill the hall

peter hayes with an outsize pig

best of breed at the county fair

middle of summer 1896

great great grandfather

john healy pale and gaunt

staring down a charging horse

bring the wayward animal to a halt

fifty years before my birth

granny berney of the floury hands

mixing up chicken slops

here's tuppence for being good

now run down to the shows

all night i've sat with the ghosts

while time and tide flowed soft

knowing not where i'll go

whence i came is good enough