Haunted

My ghosts follow me.

No. They anticipate me. Where ever I go, they are there.

They live in a specific yellow.

They peer out at me from the eyes of a broken doll that won’t be repaired, replaced or refused.

They sing to me from the radio, the television, Spotify, YouTube.

I can see them. I can hear them. I detect their scent.

My mother laughs when I consider a can of green beans. We no longer eat them; the only green beans we ever liked grew in her garden, cooked on her stove, unique amongst the green beans of the world.

Papaw drifts in on wood smoke, where no wood burns, but he is there.

Uncle Bill’s hands cover mine when I take up my knives to find the spirit of wood.

Grannie tastes of fresh berries cooked down to jam and poured hot over churned butter.

My child smells of Camel Blues and vanilla. She calls out in unexpected songs that neither of us knew until she left. She tosses yellow roses at me, and sends the crows to yell her greetings.

She fills my lungs when I hit the pipe she bought me, shared with me. Her dna lives in the resin. I inhale the acrid leavings and refuse to clean it out.

There are more.

Ghosts of the living, ghosts of the dead.

Haints that should be chased out the window on clean birch smoke, but I don’t open the windows.