“We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.”— TS Eliot
we are born
into the hands of ghosts
like shadows, buzzing beneath my skin
their breath stuck behind my teeth,
in a rib I didn’t know—
cracked open, now,
spilling time like water.
we
are born
etched in names no one speaks,
their silence riding
the currents of our voice.
see
they return
between light’s fragments on closed windows,
they press inside,
slip through fingers
where we thought we held ourselves
whole
look
we are not alone,
they walk with us, buried within the folds of our skin—
each step a resurrection,
each pause a return home.
they return
To the space between sleep and wake
They pull us through folds where time forgets itself,
where our heartbeats
burst like gaskets,
scattering into the void they left behind.
they bring us
forward
back
forward
teaching us the dance we’ve always known
but never learned.
bring us
with them, yes, bring us
into the hum, into the space
where history bites its tongue,
just under our complexion,
where roots twist,
where the past claws its way back,
scraping through layers of us,
until we become
the earth that mourns
And then blooms.
we
are born
with the dead
and they return
and return
and return