Ghost by Cynthia Huntington

Ghost

by Cynthia Huntington

At first you didn’t know me.

I was a shape moving rapidly, nervous

at the edge of your vision. A flat, high voice,

dark slash of hair across my cheekbone.

I made myself present, though never distinct.

Things I said that he repeated, a tone

you could hear, but never trace, in his voice.

Silence—followed by talk of other things.

When you would sit at your desk, I would creep

near you like a question. A thought would scurry

across the front of your mind. I’d be there,

ducking out of sight. You must have felt me

watching you, my small eyes fixed on your face,

the smile you wondered at, on the lips only.

The voice on the phone, quick and full of business.

All that you saw and heard and could not find

the center of, those days growing into years,

growing inside of you, out of reach, now with you

forever, in your house, in your garden, in corridors

of dream where I finally tell you my name.

Yes, as we near Halloween, I thought we needed some poems that were a bit creepy. And this poem reminds me of one of my favorite writers, Shirley Jackson--there is no explanation, just a lot of unsettling occurrences that get under the reader's skin and sit there. Or should I say crawl there?

The couplets here allow each instance of to get the attention they deserve; space is important in this poem.

My favorite? This one, by far:

When you would sit at your desk, I would creep

near you like a question.

I am typing this at my desk, so that may account for some of my love for this sentence. But it is the use of the word "creep" and--mostly--the image of creeping like a question. This conjures up so many images in my imagination--none of them happy and comforting.

Other unsettling things:

I made myself present, though never distinct.

the smile you wondered at

The ending, of course, is killer (pun intended):

All that you saw and heard and could not find

the center of, those days growing into years,

growing inside of you, out of reach, now with you

forever, in your house, in your garden, in corridors

of dream where I finally tell you my name.

Chills!

This book is from Huntington's 2002 book from Four Way Books called The Radiant. It won the 2001 Levis Poetry Prize and you can buy it from the publisher here. You can also read another brilliant poem on that page by the same poet (and that poem and the book cover are also creepy!). Huntington teaches at Dartmouth, has won a lot of awards, published other books, and was the New Hampshire Poet Laureate. Read more about her here.