Growing up I used to watch the neighbor girl
as she sat silently in her backyard
once the evening air cooled down.
We used to be about the same age,
but she’s older now.
Mama said she was ill.
Thought she heard ghosts in the FM radio static
like conversations made of crushed metal
echoing throughout her house for years.

Perhaps out of cowardice
more so than fear,
I kept secret
the fact I could hear it too.

It would start slow with a feeling
that I tried to shape into sound
until I could feel the words
aching like a phantom limb,
not motivated by promise of meaning
or destination,
but by an impulse to simply hear fragments
of the vast expansive despair
dripping on the other side of our world.

Before moving to the part of town
with better schools
I saw her one last time
sitting on that old picnic table
letting the sprinkler mist draw her outline
on the splintery wood planks.

She turned suddenly
faced me in the dark,
her hands cupped gently around a mysterious glow,
something ineffable,
a grief too big to be named.
Without a word
she sang a bellow to the parapet pines.
Not so much terrifying,
as hopeful,
bending the world between us
until it simmered and groaned.

Later, eating pizza amidst the moving boxes
I asked Mama what the neighbor girl’s name was
and if she was homeschooled.
Mama looked through the door screen,
with a slow acceptance.
There’s no one
here.
Now go wash up.
We’re leaving before morning.