The ghosts of you
persist in small, surprising spaces:
an email, an old calendar, a Polaroid
slipped between the unsuspecting
pages of a picture book.
Relentless time, killing us over
and over again: the infant I will never hold
again, the toddler’s first wobbling
steps, the gap-toothed smiling child.
I have died so many more
times than you and this is how
I know: the dearest haunting
is that of the ghost yet to be prized
from its flesh, as is gently whittles itself
to was. Stay with me as long
as you can. Stay with me. Stay
with me just one moment
more.
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Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. Her debut novella, “Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters” was a Nebula Award Finalist, and her third novella, “Emergent Properties,” arrived from Tor.com in July 2023. Her short fiction and poetry has previously appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Asimov’s. |