Don’t let them shroud the mirrors at the last
so you can stash your soul behind their sheen.
Leave something dear behind you when you go
so it’ll lug you back, bone after bone.
The lover living, dreaming your returning,
can lift you from the loamy under-realm.
Wait for the start of summer, or its end,
the dusk, the sinking sun, its dying fall,
or dawn, the nascent light delivering day:
such times the quick and dead are soonest mingled.
Wrap yourself up in gauze, a drifting fog,
or wear your earthly form; put on your flesh.
Dawdle in doorways; hover near the windows.
Rap on the glass; disturb the residents.
Hide keys and rattle tables; open books
and flutter pages, spelling out your message.
Caress beloved skin; its warmth will shock you
now you inhabit a perpetual cold.
Whisper your nothings in a voice like autumn,
wind crying down the chimney, mould, wet leaves.
Haunting by Kitty Coles | Sandalwood Poetry Reed Diffuser
Kitty Coles lives in Surrey and works for a charity supporting young carers. Her poems have been widely published and she has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Forward Prize and Best of the Net. Her debut pamphlet Seal Wife (2017) was joint winner of the Indigo Dreams Pamphlet Prize and her first collection, Visiting Hours was published in 2020.
