The room was silent except
for the crackle of electricity
which flared from newspaper
pages. The three of us waiting
for a ghost from the past
whose shadow flickered
on and off, on and off.
A knock at the door. The ghost
stepped over the threshold out
of darkness and into light.
A substantial ghost with tinkling
jewellery and auburn hair
which she coiled around her finger
Again and again. Again and again.
A daughter, granddaughter
lost at birth and passed to strangers.
A beautiful woman whose aura
of evangelical curse lifted floorboards,
turned the house upside down,
shook out torment, blew on shame
and made wrong right.
Her flesh is rosy, her father’s pale.
The severity of witless morality
weeping in an osmotic rush
through his skin. The iron grip
of nun, nurse and family
Loosening. Loosening.
Loosening.
Dramatic subject, grippingly realised- some great phrases!
Wow Di, very powerful! I could feel the tension in the room . Love the loosening iron grip and the osmotic rush. I wonder if the title could be just ‘Out of Wedlock’?
Maybe some tightening in second stanza – ‘a knock at the door. The ghost stepped out of darkness into light, a ghost with tinkling jewellery and auburn hair, etc.
Wow indeed – really builds to a crescendo in the last two stanzas – the penultimate one is especially powered and powerful. Silly thing but I wondered about cutting “from the past ” in the first stanza… As it is a ghost it has to come from the past?… Fantastic imagination and i love the visceral sense of her being.
Hello Di, I thought this really fine – wonder though if you might lose the last stanza: I felt to end on ‘blew on shame/ and made wrong right’, an absolutely marvellous 2 lines, would be so much stronger.