All Hallows' Eve

In honor of the holiday, a poem in the voice of a ghost:

NOCTURNE
By Daleth Carey Hall

I am here, and not.
The difference is tiny:
A tilting of sunbeams, a settling of dust.

When you dream of my house,
I enter: rooms jumbled,
Dream-skewed,
Not at all as it was.
In your confusion I find
My chair, and sit gratefully.
If I wink, your eyes flutter.
You turn in your sleep.

When I left, in a step
I crossed galaxies. At the thought
Of returning, I returned,
But not to what I’d left:
You’re a flicker of pictures,
All shadow and light.
The skin beneath fingers, the heat
Of your breath,
Are beyond my ken.

As you sleep, I rest
In your dream-chair, the only one
That holds me, or walk
In the only house
Whose walls I don’t pass through.

When you wake, the hint of me
The memory of weight
Burns off in an instant
Like a night’s fog at sunrise,
Like a note that’s been sung.

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Edited to add: published in Earth's Daughters issue #72, 2008