The Ghost That Holds My Hand

I remember your hands.

Not their shape,

just the heat,

like sunlight that knew my name.

There was a yellow kitchen,

I think,

With billowing curtains trembling at a window,

And you were laughing,

a sound that was visceral enough

to sit in.

Once, you knelt to zip my coat.

The zipper caught your finger.

You said “oops.”

and kissed the air,

as if the hurt had flown out of you.

I can still feel the texture of your sweater.

Blue and wool that smelled faintly of something baking.

Chocolate?

Or maybe that’s just because I wish

it had been chocolate.

The hallway light in the evening,

I see it like a halo.

Were you singing?

Or is the hum in my head and

just the blood remembering?

All say I was too young.

Brains like mine don’t hold on that early.

But I do,

to the way your shadow

bent over my crib,

to the way my fingers

closed around something warm

and didn’t let go.

Maybe it’s a trick of the mind,

how the years blur the edges and still leave the center sharp.

Maybe I made you up.

Maybe you made yourself stay.

But I swear, when I dream of walking into that kitchen,

Your laughter turns,

sees me,

And says my name again.

As if it never stopped.