Fergus McAlister, "Ghost Story" (poem)

FERGUS McALISTER | GHOST STORY

I. Transient

The man who turned the tables on temptation Turns his face to the sun in summer But takes his leave in the dead of the year, Keeping to places nobody visits, Preferring to walk when the weather Is fine, but also when it isn’t.

Alone, footsore and chilled to the bone, The man who turned the tables on temptation Forgets who he is but knows all along How luck, in time, plays out for everyone: At the end of his road he will come To the place where he seems to be going, And knock at the door where nobody’s home.

II. Survivor

Five of us were hanged and six were shot, And I, a loner all my life and known To none as one who only lost his light, Survived in darkness for the height of hate And tapped the surface of the ice To sound a way around a world of lies.

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For some held true to truth, others That love was something larger than it was, And just a few forebore to throw a stone, While I alone adhered to wise advice: Keep left against the traffic in the night; Watch out for cars with guns that like to hog The road; beware of friends in fair weather; And whether lost or lonely, trust only in your dog; Walk slowly first, then run for what remains of life Along the backroads till you’re out of sight.

III. Lost

The man who wished he’d never been Has lost his dog named Ben. He can’t explain, for all his good intentions, Just how or why the whole thing happened — So many crowded streets to cross, And, in wait for them, a hell of intersections.

The man who wished he’d never been Wishes it were all a dream instead But knows it’s not, and fears how it will end: His friend, the best he’ll ever have, is lost; His Ben, who moves him then to add He’d give his life to have him back again.

Santa Fe Literary Review 65

66 Volume 16 • 2021 IV. Ghost

Digressions of the lost and circumventions Shaped for strangers the street, till this: The one reflecting on his hang-dog other, Nose to nose with only storefront pane between, No longer panic-paced nor trusting of the twin No longer kin. For only one exists, while one Dissembles, can, if conversation ends, dissolve From consequence, and thus give up the ghost The other knows from someplace: some nemesis, Perhaps, without the heart to ease another’s, Some hounding from within, or just the afterword Of silence, a face that fades beyond the glass Absolved from ordinary hunger and the world Of pale foreknowledge flowered in the host, A shadow land where none pretend, where love Is never found again and nothing lasts.