Angela Deane, Follow Me
REMEMBERING IS A KIND OF WORK TOO
In the ghost story I don’t write,
the girl meets the ghost, the end.
Ghosts are always a way out—a wet end—
in this ghost world I am wet
with kindness, dripping open from it all—
when I was a girl my hair was child length.
I hid all my bruises with her.
—Why didn’t you leave the school?
but I did leave and nothing changed.
I left the home. Nothing changed.
In the ghost story, a girl
crawls through the hole,
enters a room like hers
but worse: A man with a hook
for a tongue. A woman with dripping hair.
When I was a girl, I entered
a room like mine but worse,
and my father was there, with a gallon of wine.
His face was bloody.
No, it was flushed.
He slurred his words. He moved closer.
In the story, the girl leaves
the room but can’t leave it behind.
—Are you expecting mercy here?
Grace, or kindness?
Even after I got out, even after,
it followed.