American Literary Magazine
Ghost Story Vishwa Bhatt
In the height of summer, you stand at the crest of Devil’s Hill Half mirage and half a boy-ghost The town of believers buried you in the ground But prayers from my sinner’s mouth brought you back To stand above the field of dying wildflowers we once laid in Back when you were the only living thing for miles and your lips tasted like it Here is the boy who made love to me while we were both in our Sunday best Swore he would find his own way to heaven Today, you face up to the sky while the rest of us cower from the heat Your sun-bleached eyelashes feathering against your cheeks And I know you are still looking for your way upward Not knowing your black hair lies motionless in the sweltering breeze. They buried you in your church clothes But I snuck the brass knuckles in your pocket before the funeral Just in case God decided to pick a fight; the kind you could never walk away from You come back to me bloodless now, pale and thin and chap-lipped And more alive than I have ever known you It is an easy thing to choose tumbling with you one final time I think I see the silhouette of crow’s wings blooming from your back just before we fall And then we fall. The village children will relish telling this ghost story for years Of you, the boy who sang the prayer hymns a little too loudly and died an early death And me, who was seen once more on Devil’s Hill and never came back
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