Sunlight and its ghosts
I picture kids gathering up their jumbled limbs
From timeless lawns and ambling through the dusk
To bottle-shops and restaurants, having basked
In the sun’s last rays and in each other’s arms.
I conjure these blithe ghosts from murdered days,
And find my mind returning to the wife
Shelley deserted, who, betrayed by life,
Was dragged mud-slicked from black and bloating waters.
The days are still, and in the afternoons
The sun constructs thin rivers of warm light
Which wander through these wide, unpeopled rooms;
But in night’s murk the guilt of having hurt
Bursts through the scumbled surface of my dreams:
I see a face once loved now slicked with hate.
© David Lumsden, 2012
This poem was published in Tirra Lirra (Australia) and Pennine Platform (U.K.)