Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver

“Spooked” was published on Chewers by Masticadores. Thank you, editor Nolcha Fox! I’m delighted that you accepted this poem for your Thinning of the Veil series.

“Spooked” by Barbara Leonhard

This poem is based on a personal experience. I was visiting my maternal grandparents, who preferred we used their first names, BT and Sylvia. Sylvia was BT’s second wife. His first, Lilian, had passed away from a heart attack in that home many years prior to his second marriage to Sylvia.

I was sleeping in the basement of Mom’s family home when this happened.

Spooked 
 
Night, a suffocating tar pitch.
A whisper strokes my hair.
Laughter and the clinking of glasses
from somewhere overhead.
Music winging to my ears.
I want not to be alone
in night’s dark mound.
Beneath my feet, an ice rink.
I glide in the shadows of this cave,
holding onto the limestone walls,
feeling for handholds and footholds for my ascent.
The light, a sliver of moon,
my rope to the entryway.
I grasp it and pull—suddenly
an open door, a crack of laughter, applause.
Wafts of cookies, cake, cherry pie.
Dark wavy hair frames her pale face.
Her wild eyes warn.
“Go away.”
“Please may I come in?”
“You can’t. Go away.”
Refusals, shivering gusts
slam the door.
Cast out, I rappel down to the trail,
collapse into the pit.
The pine splinters.
Icy filigree fingers blanket me—

That was Lilian—
my dead grandmother!

Post Note: Another relative told me she had experienced this same haunting!!

I’ve written about Grandmother Lilian in my best-selling book Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir.

Kindle (Paperback is also available)