Every night I wait for you in the harbour
and every night you never return.
Are you the tattered sail on the horizon,
the ghost ship re-enacting its death
on that overdrawn border wedged
between earth and sky? Barnacles
hush me with their bleached blistered
lips. They wash over me like an elegy.
When I return to our home again
I realise everything is empty.
Even the fireplace is devoid of ashes.
And you. You are standing there
over a coffin whose contents I’ll never see.
Love, I am so chilled, won’t you please hold me again.
Morgan L. Ventura (They/she) is a poet and writer based between Ireland and Mexico. Their poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Lackington’s, and Pastel Pastoral: Gothic Issue, among others. You can find Ventura on Twitter: @hmorganvl. They believe in ghosts.
photo by Castorly Stock (via pexels)
Crow & Cross Keys 