Family Ghosts

Not the sort that weather themselves round you,
stream past the window shouting at owls, stand
in pools in your garden waving their severed heads
at the moon with your grandmother's hat on

but the letter you thought you hadn't received,
your undownloaded e-mail, an over-breath,
a dried dab of blood on a bandaid, a hand
by your ribcage, back door opening at a gust.


Once

Tonight it's a blue moon.
Our last day here, end of June,

things are working a treat -
in the Museum of Modern Art

the paint's flaking, raw material
under my fingernails,

onto the carpet off the Rothkos,
the poppy red ones. Photos
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