Celia Meade
THE GHOST IN ME
Your hearts on branches
lilac bob sinew
scented candles stretched and dipping into ruffled
wicks. I carry the smell of you deep into
my structure,
through
my
windpipe
trunk,
through
bronchiole branches,
to their end in alveoli,
empty flower buds of air.
I use this ghost of you to breathe
as I need the real you (my mirror, Rorschach twin)
as your waste, your oxygen poison is my very
life’s breath.
scented candles stretched and dipping into ruffled
wicks. I carry the smell of you deep into
my structure,
through
my
windpipe
trunk,
through
bronchiole branches,
to their end in alveoli,
empty flower buds of air.
I use this ghost of you to breathe
as I need the real you (my mirror, Rorschach twin)
as your waste, your oxygen poison is my very
life’s breath.
Celia Meade is a poet, novelist, and painter attending Sarah Lawrence for an MFA in poetry. She is presently studying under Afaa Micheal Weaver and has studied with Marie Howe and Jo Ann Beard. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in BoomerLitMag, Brushfire Literature and Arts Journal, Euphony Journal, Five on the Fifth, Headway Quarterly, Lake Effect, The Louisville Review, Lunaris Review, (mac)ro(mic), Paragon Journal, Perceptions Magazine, Plainsongs, Sheila-Na-Gig, Streetlight Magazine, Umbrella Factory Magazine, and Whistling Shade. She also holds an MFA in painting from the University of Calgary and studied at the Royal College of Art in London.