We Are All In Motion

Katie Squires  

We pass the cemetery on the way to school

and he says maybe it’s haunted.

Maybe the dead have nothing better to do

than to whisper in our ears

             Look at me, please.

                         Maybe we all leave ghosts behind

                         when the torrent changes.

                                     Maybe my hands are still

                                     wrapped around my brother

                                                   As we watch our toy cars crash together,

                                                              the same way that the sun’s bygone light

                                                                            presently caresses my scalp.

                                                               Is that shine ever wasted

                                                  when its remnants are seen in the willows?

                                    Is a ghost a faded cry, lunging for a body to fill,

                                    or simply a ripple of life without the need to land?

              It ricochets between us, collecting and colliding.

              There is nothing that happens only once.

                                                        A car drives out of the cemetery lot,

                                                       and he says we should come back at night

                                                                               when the light can’t reach us,

                                                                               and the living don’t sing.

                                                                                             That way we’re the only ones who know

                                                                                                          what we’re about to leave behind.