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Ghost Drafting

"the dead starve in their hollow / halls"

Published onApr 21, 2021
Ghost Drafting

I wipe clean mantlepiece

polish blank the mirrors

scrape cold ash of fireplace

so the dead starve in their hollow

halls ­— remembrance

as negative renovation

stripping bare living rooms, patios, and kitchen

into one long corridor:

interior design of

four gray lines

to infinity, almost

touching, a throng

of fading ghosts between.

We please the living — stuff them

with electricity, air conditioning,

computers — their half-life

of milliseconds feverishly tapped

like a chain smoker's faulty lighter

her last ember

already cooling in the gravel.

The wraiths

trail ever on a thinner filament –

always fading

but never

erased.


Joshua Bridgwater Hamilton is a Louisville, KY native who migrated to Corpus Christi with his family, where he teaches Spanish. Between Kentucky and Texas, he has traveled and lived in several places, including Spain, Appalachia, Panamá, Peru, the Philippines, and the Colorado River.  He has two chapbooks: Rain Minnows (Gnashing Teeth Publishing), and Slow Wind (Finishing Line Press), and his poetry appears in such journals as Windward ReviewDriftwood, Voices de la LunaTiny Seeds Journal, and Sybil Journal.

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