Ghosting – Maria Taylor

Ghosting

Think of Will, the ghost of Covent Garden,
the murdered thesp who’s walking alongside you
down and down a staircase that’ll never end.

Dapper gent. Victorian. Eventually you’ll see daylight.
The actor won’t. Spare a thought for ghosts
we pass at stations: their meetings, secret flings, kisses.

People vanish into thin air every single day.
It’s said even ghosts fade in time. Where do they go?
Remember all those see-through Elizabethans,

roaming Plantagenet kings in car parks, crying boys
reaching out for our faces, those we can’t see, can’t feel.
You’re no different. Look, here’s your own reflection.

Maria Taylor is a poet and reviewer. Her first collection Melanchrini (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Award. She has a pamphlet, Instructions for Making Me From HappenStance Press. She Tweets at: @MariaTaylor_