Sarah Mills
Ghazal for Things That Disappear
After your funeral, in my bedroom mirror, I saw a ghost
wearing your lipstick, your black pearls—I begged: stay, ghost.
I skipped school and lay in the snow to absolve myself.
What I left in the field was no angel, but a stray ghost.
My lover, a mathematician (which I mistook for magician)--
calculate the ways he makes me disappear, a display ghost.
Remember when the setting changed from country to city,
the sky a palimpsest of dying stars, a Milky Way ghost?
I longed to fade, so I cut two holes in a pillowcase--
they called me imposter; they called me cliché ghost.
That midnight dream where I’m shoeless in the street.
Every road in this life leads to grief, a highway ghost.
A woman at the flower market with your amaryllis hair
pulls peonies by a leash. She vanishes—a bouquet ghost.
The blue hour. Oh sapphire oh electric oh azulejos.
Watch as the dial slowly turns up, up, up, night-to-day ghost.
Would the sky become invisible if I could erase the stars?
He calls me trash, garbage, nothing—yesterday’s ghost.
I disassembled myself like a toy and played hide and seek,
but I didn’t want to be found—only to play ghost.
All the ways I have molded myself to make you fit.
How I have lengthened the arms of this clay ghost.
Another funeral, another bedroom, another mirror.
I miss her hair, that dissipating cloud of hairspray ghost.
Say phantom say spirit say child of an alcoholic say empty
bottle say shell say Sarah: how many ways can you say ghost?
After your funeral, in my bedroom mirror, I saw a ghost
wearing your lipstick, your black pearls—I begged: stay, ghost.
I skipped school and lay in the snow to absolve myself.
What I left in the field was no angel, but a stray ghost.
My lover, a mathematician (which I mistook for magician)--
calculate the ways he makes me disappear, a display ghost.
Remember when the setting changed from country to city,
the sky a palimpsest of dying stars, a Milky Way ghost?
I longed to fade, so I cut two holes in a pillowcase--
they called me imposter; they called me cliché ghost.
That midnight dream where I’m shoeless in the street.
Every road in this life leads to grief, a highway ghost.
A woman at the flower market with your amaryllis hair
pulls peonies by a leash. She vanishes—a bouquet ghost.
The blue hour. Oh sapphire oh electric oh azulejos.
Watch as the dial slowly turns up, up, up, night-to-day ghost.
Would the sky become invisible if I could erase the stars?
He calls me trash, garbage, nothing—yesterday’s ghost.
I disassembled myself like a toy and played hide and seek,
but I didn’t want to be found—only to play ghost.
All the ways I have molded myself to make you fit.
How I have lengthened the arms of this clay ghost.
Another funeral, another bedroom, another mirror.
I miss her hair, that dissipating cloud of hairspray ghost.
Say phantom say spirit say child of an alcoholic say empty
bottle say shell say Sarah: how many ways can you say ghost?
Irene, My OCD Brain, Goes to the Post Office
The postal clerk asks if there’s anything in my package that’s liquid fragile perishable
flammable potentially hazardous. It’s the word hazardous that Irene doesn’t like. It’s the
word potentially that I don’t like. Everything has the potential to be dangerous. Nail
clippers. Sand art. That yellow sign in my neighbor’s yard that reads Slow Down, Children--
the words At Play buried in snow. I’m sending a Valentine’s gift to my niece. A pink
teddy bear holding a small bag of Hershey’s Kisses. I guess that’s technically perishable, I tell
the clerk. That’s not really what they mean by perishable, she says. They mean things like tomatoes.
I want her to know that my package isn’t inherently dangerous but that it could be. That
anything could be. And isn’t everything fragile? Aren’t we all just walking around like
rattling boxes of glassware that someone didn’t wrap tightly enough? Her face is red like
a warning label, the kind I want her to put on the box. Handle with Care, Just in Case, I
want it to say. Handle me with care, I am asking of her. Irene knows that I will spend the
next few days worrying I made the wrong choice. That I will think about going back to
the post office and begging them to find my package so I can change my answer. That I
will wake up in the middle of the night with intrusive thoughts about my package hurting
someone, somehow. But there are things Irene doesn’t know—like that I have spent
hours estimating her dimensions. That one day I am going to mail her off in one of those
prepaid shipping boxes to an unknown destination. That the clerk will ask if I’m sending
anything liquid fragile perishable flammable potentially hazardous. That I will say no as
she takes the box from my shaking hands.
The postal clerk asks if there’s anything in my package that’s liquid fragile perishable
flammable potentially hazardous. It’s the word hazardous that Irene doesn’t like. It’s the
word potentially that I don’t like. Everything has the potential to be dangerous. Nail
clippers. Sand art. That yellow sign in my neighbor’s yard that reads Slow Down, Children--
the words At Play buried in snow. I’m sending a Valentine’s gift to my niece. A pink
teddy bear holding a small bag of Hershey’s Kisses. I guess that’s technically perishable, I tell
the clerk. That’s not really what they mean by perishable, she says. They mean things like tomatoes.
I want her to know that my package isn’t inherently dangerous but that it could be. That
anything could be. And isn’t everything fragile? Aren’t we all just walking around like
rattling boxes of glassware that someone didn’t wrap tightly enough? Her face is red like
a warning label, the kind I want her to put on the box. Handle with Care, Just in Case, I
want it to say. Handle me with care, I am asking of her. Irene knows that I will spend the
next few days worrying I made the wrong choice. That I will think about going back to
the post office and begging them to find my package so I can change my answer. That I
will wake up in the middle of the night with intrusive thoughts about my package hurting
someone, somehow. But there are things Irene doesn’t know—like that I have spent
hours estimating her dimensions. That one day I am going to mail her off in one of those
prepaid shipping boxes to an unknown destination. That the clerk will ask if I’m sending
anything liquid fragile perishable flammable potentially hazardous. That I will say no as
she takes the box from my shaking hands.
--
Sarah Mills is a Pushcart-nominated poet whose poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Rust & Moth, The Shore, Gone Lawn, Unbroken, Up the Staircase, SoFloPoJo, Beaver Mag, MoonPark Review, Miniskirt Mag, and elsewhere.
Sarah Mills is a Pushcart-nominated poet whose poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Rust & Moth, The Shore, Gone Lawn, Unbroken, Up the Staircase, SoFloPoJo, Beaver Mag, MoonPark Review, Miniskirt Mag, and elsewhere.