Ghostblind

The dead would like
to know us better.
They gesture wildly
but our fleshy hereness
shines too intensely
for us to see them.
 
Between the streetlights,
the desk lamp,
and the microwave’s
digital display,
we’ve left no darkness
that’s dark enough to haunt.
 
Forgetting that the dead
are always with us,
we grieve their loss.
 
Only in horror films
do we remind ourselves
that life and afterlife
once kept fewer secrets
from one another.
The living and the dead
are now such lonesome souls. 

Tom Laichas is author most recently of Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Los Angeles Times, Plume, The Moth (Ireland), the Irish Times, BarBar, and elsewhere. He lives in Venice, California.