(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 22, 2014)


I remember the story because I was agitated,
perturbed to hear grandma would return and visit

Aunt Edna beside her hospital bed and not us,
say to Edna it was okay to pass on and not us.

That’s how I know somebody told me the story.
Why would I make it up?

I never thought about Edna in the hospital
or grandma coming back.

There was a splinter of feeling forsaken there,
whether grandma was a ghost or a delirium,

we were missing out. What does it matter
if it was true or untrue, whether you believe in ghosts?

Every family has its skeleton;
why shouldn’t we have ours.

No bank robbers, no moonshiners,
and now no ghosts.  They say

dead men tell no tales, except they do.
They tell their tales through us.