I prepare for its departure. Spring is here;

it has been here. I swept the clumps of pollen and tree buds

out of my corners.

The more time we spend outside

the less paranoid I feel. We all know it is time

for the ghost to leave—even the baby has taken to shouting

bye-bye at the empty apartment

when we go. I don’t want her to remember me

this way. Neither do I want to be erased.

I must stop conflating the ghost with my father.

Wishing my daughter to hold memories of him

will not make it so. We ride the carousel together.

She sits with her father on the bench, and I choose a horse

that moves up and down without getting anywhere. She looks on

with delight. The faces of these wooden animals appear

frozen in motion: a lip curled back revealing white, white teeth.

Hair that mimics the breeze, taut muscles

in the legs and flank. Are my memories in motion? Are any of us?

I read a theory in which time is not motion but another dimension

that we can travel up, down, backward, forward. A dimension that is still,

can be looked at from an outward vantage. Even if this is so,

we are moving within it, seemingly in one direction. No matter

how much I’d like to believe otherwise.