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The ghost, five foot eleven, draped in
olive and khaki creases,
eyes bloodshot and yellowing,
but his face alive with a
daddy’s excitement
to be home.
The strong smell of ketchup and two hot dogs each,
arranged carefully on gleaming
white paper plates and
ready to be dressed—
like us, in summer, just
in from the smothering heat and
watching you,
wide-eyed and wet-down in bathing suits,
smiling and shivering as we wait
for the other shoe to drop.
Rush Limbaugh’s coarse voice
buzzing over the glistening linoleum floor
and drowning out the gauzy
spectacle of you in our minds,
rushing through the thick Southern air
and charming us like snakes,
sitting silently so we can catch the bait
your ghost still offers with an arm outstretched
through the musty fog of so many lunchtimes
spent fearing
and fawning over you.
Julia Englund
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