to touch a ghost

The first sound was the quieting
of my fingers brushing
the first, brief shocks of hair
from your head. Still. There
when our father said
we had five seconds to cry
before he’d get angry
or cry himself. When the child psychiatrist
watched you play
with ghosts, diagnosed
seems like a perfectly happy
child to me. Am I

both or neither of us
now? My fingers through your hair
aren’t so much fingers
anymore. My touch not so much
touch. Only breeze, your dark hair
like mine, this absence
you’ll hear now and for the rest of
our lives. Half-drowned
tree in the lake shrouded
in mist. Listening, beyond
the doorway of that haunted
shore where you wake
from every dream, our mother saying,
I speak with the dead. If I can

reach and hold across this always,
these galaxies, your forehead
like a steaming cup
to my lips. If I can mouth my silent swan-
song into you, know this without
my saying it: Brother,
lend your ear. There are many
different ways to sing yourself
to sleep. Like in your head? Our father pleads.
No, she mouths. Like I’m speaking
to you now.