childhood summers wrap hands around me, silver
with half-loving promises of shimmering heat,
and i’m turning my pockets inside out for loose
change—dimes and nickels for popsicles that evaporate
in the sun, leaving the taste of metal rising bitter
in my mouth. i collect these coins and ghosts,
light candles in my father’s church. i’m a ghost’s
remembrance of june, peeling the girl-silver
off from my eyes. my lips cherry-red, bitter
with popsicle stick splinters. i’m a mid-august heat
wave that kills thousands. i puddle, i evaporate,
i condense again. i’m the dark river and the loose
throat of the water singing. i’m the bible’s loose
woman and i dream about touching ghosts,
or a girl’s fingers where i’m wounded. i evaporate
like firework smoke in the morning. ghosthood silver
as bicycle wheels or asphalt in the summer heat.
girlhood as an unending wounding, bitter
to remember. i’m alone in the chapel with bitter
shadows around my ankles that beg to be let loose.
my body, victimless. this is the inevitable heat-
stroke that comes after the fire, girl becoming ghost
to curl up in my bed, to twine silver
fingers in my hair until she evaporates
in the morning. but didn’t we all evaporate
when the light hit us? i became the bitter-
ness of incense. i grew up in a house of silver
ghosts, buttoned my sisters’ dresses, gathered loose
cloth and baby blankets to stitch into quilts. ghosts
at the swimming pool and girls in the sun-heat
that white marble tombs radiate. summer heat
as a metaphor for a heaven that only evaporated
when i reached for it with hands that loved ghosts
more than god. girl-poison on my cheeks, bitter
as memory, not forgetting that whatever i lose
will find its way back: coins and june nights silver
and alight with firefly ghosts. a girl’s hands and the heat
she left behind. the silver on her eyes evaporated:
a girl’s mouth no longer bitter, a ghost’s love set loose.
Ayame Whitfield lives on the East Coast of the US and never stops writing (but probably produces too much poetry about the moon and the ocean); thinks flowers and cats and eating berries are the best things in life; drinks far too much tea; and can be found as @avolitorial on Patreon and most social media.