Les Rêves des Notre Ours #2 | Page 9

Ghost Exit of a Carpenter

Ghost exit. In fog, in cold dew on long grass.

Like the tide they are present.

Listen for their absence. Their move moves.

Once, I saw in a split second vision, as clear as looking

through a window, or at an image on a screen,

the fair and blue dungarees of a carpenter

coming home from work, his red shirt

and happy chapped face

visible to me for a scene.

Then absence, void image, only a gut knowledge

of the world beyond the scrim.

Keep singing

and if we meet and I am no more

I shall join you

with my diminished voice.

The sawgrass beaded with dew

reflects back thousands of prism worlds,

colors and light bending in a circle,

a blue jay alights a pine branch,

tucks his blueberry blue under wing

and is gone.

by Stephen Scott Whitaker - Stephen Scott Whitaker is a member of National Book Critics Circle, and the literary review editor for The Broadkill Review. All My Rowdy Friends was published in 2016 by Punks Write Poems Press, LLC; his previous chapbooks include the steampunk inspired The Black Narrows, the award winning Field Recordings, and The Barleyhouse Letters.