Ghosts

Love was Perfect
for about two weeks

that's when he fell 
off the pedestal
she had put him on

Maybe he was different
"not like Daddy"
Not like she made this 
analogy consciously
something stronger, more
primitive was driving her
to believe in the ghosts

Those school girl days
walking with the neighborhood kids
A man, hungover, leaning
on a strange woman
"Hey, ain't that your
Daddy?"

Now he sits there
across the table
dinner is cold
"Where have you been?"
Defiant, he doesn't like
the question, the tone
Stubborn, he refuses to answer
That is when the ghosts came back

Her love broken
and every time
she didn't know
where he was
he was with one of them

In forty four years there
must have been 
hundreds
Perfumed, red-lips
beautiful and alluring
She never saw them
because he was so clever
at hiding them
she said

Truth is
nobody ever saw them

Whatever he said
she never heard
She believed in them
she always had
She had seen them
in the arms of her 
father all those years
ago

Since then the ghosts
had been real
and they haunted her
for the rest of
her life

cDeby White Jizi  2004