It’s not the case that we can’t seal it in;

we can contain them. I dust the rafters

and pour your cereal. You drink tisane,

always something with peppermint.
When it starts, we coast around

their moaning tides

quite gently, leave

no access to our remembrance.
When we trace their prints

we may not miss the claimed thing,

something pocketable,
a clean white stone. Instead we resort

to doorways and river mouths,

seal it all in glass– and

that’s all it takes, in the end,

some minor lack and we

bring them back to voicelessness,
to jars without lid or lip.
But back to ghosts: you are only haunted.

Start with salt and iron.