And when my own ghost claims me – then it’s such a joyful encounter, such a celebration, that in a manner of speaking we cry on each other’s shoulders.

 Words arise in a lonesome. That’s never alone. Is always with. Surfacing at the tip. Florescent degraded music. When they speak who is them. What edge’s the place for I to stand. Inhabited and inhabiting. Bright moon vanishing every star is a flood of not knowing. Night’s voiceless rooms for making. Swarmed by embassies. Who lives an I in the glimmer of meetings.

Having created for themselves an archive of glimpses. Rose petals decay into melted forms. A sweet smell mixed with smoke and incense. Soil accumulates magenta’s fade. When cloud obscures moon it’s a fragrance forgotten before remembered. They are not called. They come. No emissary carries a word that does not burn. Then this is what the I’s edge is moving towards.

Tidal whispers move leaves. Desire holds no muscles first a stillness. A waiting of cupped petals. To move towards them they must first arrive. They are not called. They come out the sweet smoke of rose. Out fumes of burning leaves. Because once desire was animate a voice said or a touch was. Breath tore. In the tear engendered a glimpse. Something was born there.

There is sleep like there is a wake. They recede and meandering return. Where do they visit between. Whose edge of I do they wrap around this flagrantly. Lonesome is memory bubbles moving towards each shadow. Their speaking of gestures. They say by their attendance. By appearing. With no claim to them but they inhabit. At work. Inside the rose’s cloud they incarnate and they wait.

Do there remain methods to greet absence. The shadows are full. The flame burns oil and smudged eyes stare. With a desire that is past the edge of I. Beyond. To their own incarnations incomplete within the globe’s edge. Does the gesture ask to be more than cloud. Here a body has been found. When it is still. When it is most like dreaming they come. Incarnate. Out of an alone posed as forgot.

They vanish but they do not go. Do they go quiet. They are a lapping and tidal. When bodies are near the sea calls them back. Their bodies depart the leaves go still the moon obliterates stars and they appear again. If there is I in them how do they pose so well as other. Approaching rarely with a touch. What the memories have germinated are watchers. They see. Do not say what they see.

I return within my own edges clouded by smoke and rose glad to be solid to not be taken.

…

Aaron Boothby is a poet from California now living in Montréal. Work has been published in PRISM, Axolotl, Liminality, and other journals while a chapbook titled Reperspirations, Exhalations, Wrapt Inflections was published in 2016 with Anstruther Press. Tweets appear @ellipticalnight and a website can be found at secret-interference.info