SexDead PaleSong

Elise M. McClellan

There were sheets as I remember,
enough to fill any house with phantoms.

We slept over ghost after ghost,
creaking the bed, rattling chains.

We were trans-parents.

our children never were,
but seemed to be. no matter how
we booed or moaned,

we were alone. As you billowed into me,
my legs split over stairs of air.

Our starchy skins grew threadbare
where we loved. I knew where you had been,
beloved.

As we shook side to side and sighed,
the earth parted around us in moist piles.

As the piles grew deeper with a damper love,
I still held on. I still hold on.

You haunt me like the dead haunt God.

The 2River View, 1_2 (Winter 1997)