Sarah Ann Winn

takes the light

and turns it

inward, crawls

over the bark of trees

harmlessly. It doesn’t

even bring its leaves

along, abandoning them

after youth.

It lets its brief bloom

fall away

like the address of the house

you once loved,

your old bike

still leaning

against the garage wall.

Ghost name blooming

on the bark

of a street sign

in a landfill.

Ghost flower branding

a dark world

with white neon.

Late night

at the closed

ice cream stand,

you can melt

with its petals

into the swelter

of rising tides

of drought and smoke

of hunger and everything

that grew you up then threw you out.

If there is anything left

to be haunted

let the orchid

scrawl its ghost graffiti

on silvering wood.

Let these words

be the ghost orchid

whose roots cling

to the roof of your mouth.