WHEN THEY COME BACK, by Avra Margariti
158 Words
WHEN THEY COME BACK,
by Avra MargaritiBrass chiming in the distance
rousing me from slumber.
We put a bell over her grave,
the string buried in the estate’s rich soil—
an unnecessary precaution, for I knew that Lady Death
had taken my lover from me
to love as her own.
This is a haunting, a return
her white gown coated in mud and cold moonlit dew
as she crawls into my four-poster bed
and I bite my fist lest I alert the servants.
Her parchment tongue soothes the bitemarks
lapping along my knuckles.
We settle against each other
childhood friends, adulthood companions.
In life she used to smell of noblewoman perfumes;
now her musty rot pastes itself against the roof of my mouth.
She tells me, Your father sends his regards
from a long-gone battlefield.
Your mother died in childbirth but is now the mother
of many dead infants, her bosom always heavy
with phantom milk.
Your pets are looking good, also
cat and dog forever chasing each other
in a skeletal tango.
What about you? I ask, our bare legs brushing together
- Writer
