25 – Sleeping in Truro

FOR GREG

How are you a ghost here
when you were often only a conversation
words on a keypad
our ethernet tethers and ideals
someone I barely knew
save for a soft, full kiss on tiptoes
and the perfumed promise
of again and more
on a day that never came

but here, in Truro now,
your ghost whispers daily
of bourbon and dunes
the curve near Longnook
a family I never met

and Cassie at the Lobster Pot
you, even then, a shadow
of what might have been
those air wave words
“whatever she wants”
you told her
paying the price
from two thousand miles away

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Photo and Poem ©2024, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.