—after Ezra Pound

I have joined an endless line, the
Left Behind, seekers of apparition
when that is all that remains. The tilt of
a smile, a similar build, these
are the signs we watch for in bodies and faces.
And when the ghost is sighted—in
a café, on the train, in the queue at the
taxi stand—everything falls away, no crowd,
just our beloved, returned like petals
in springtime. We grab the fleeting joy on
impulse, this impossible miracle. Then a
stab of truth. Our trickster eyes tear wet,
elation plummets into the black.
There is no bloom, only a dead, bare bough.