Katrina Kaye

No Longer

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I do not see ghosts anymore
but they are still here.

I watch them in the sparrows
I no longer have the inclination
to chase. I feel them in the music
I no longer have the patience
to memorize. I dance with them,

but no longer remember when first
I learned the steps; I listen to their
words, though I no longer speak
their native tongue. I hear them in the drip
of the faucet late at night, the creak
of the floorboards as I pass through.

I can still feel them within this home,
these walls, this air. They remain.
The one constant I know.

“No Longer” is previously published in Rabbits for Luck (2016).

Melquiades and Loretta

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

He outlived her by twenty-three years,
yet they remain nestled together in the earth.

I can’t help but wonder if he spent
those years alone, stuck in a daughter’s
kitchen with obnoxious grandchildren
and great-grandchildren weaving around
his knobbed knees and kitchen table.

I wonder if he had other lovers,
later in life, the kind that meet late
at movies or intertwine hands on park
benches, secret affairs he kept from
controlling daughter.

Did he tell Loretta his secrets?
Ask her for forgiveness?
Come to grey marker after Sunday mass
to confess the sins he held in his heart?

Did he talk about her on the last days,
walk an 84-year-old crooked gait,
mistake the silhouette of his daughter
over the kitchen sink as long
departed wife?

Did he call her her mother’s name
without even realizing the mistake
and did he wake to a daughter’s sharp glance
before walking back to the porch to slump
on front bench in final silence?

“Melquiades and Loretta” is previously published in Graveyard Collection (2015).

Bird

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I would love
to catch you
for a moment,

like an
inconsequential lie,
a fallen bird
I can teach again to fly,

and when you are
basking in your own sun,
send me a postcard
of the life you’ve won.

With scrawled note
telling me
you don’t need me anymore.

With scrawled signature
saying
Thank you.

“Bird” is previously published in To Anyone Who Has Ever Loved a Writer (2014).