POETRY: IN LOCKDOWN

sea of ghosts

if you come to visit the past
you must take the ghost tour
la mer des fantômes they call it locally.
here is the place you can view them in broad daylight –
here they swim through undersea boulevards,
temple colonnades, broken hotel rooms,
forgotten hurts,
then sink into the trembling bands of blue,
as if waving farewell

and once you get used to them
you may lean into your reflection catching the spray on your tongue
and they’ll feed from your hands,
timidly at first but then unafraid,
with a hard mouth