I’m high on a bluff above a bay
riffled with whitecaps. Wind elbows
the corners of my papers, snatches
pages. I scramble to grab my words.
What I thought I wanted to say
drowned out by gusts. Ghosts
moan outside a door I didn’t know
I was holding closed. I creak open
on rusty hinges. Phantoms flood in
with their well-worn laments:

You withheld your heart,
let us depart, coldly clinging
to your own precious life.

How can I answer back? I stand
with fringes of the unforgiven
fluttering from my clothes. Prospero
commanding a tempest, demanding
ships loaded with cargo of absolution.
Oh, such delusion.
The holds of the boats are empty.
I conjure nothing.
And the voices are my own.