Marble

Our ghosts follow us more
often than we think,
or want.

I told my grandmother,
“Get in touch with me after you die.”
If existence after death is real.
I’ve never heard from her.

A church attender
who is trying to figure out
weird religious after-this-life stuff.

“We’ve never been taught to listen differently.
To hear the song of kin long dead.
In the breeze, the bending of a tree,
or sunlight’s twinkle off rippling water.”

Something rolled in the sock drawer
when pulling it out.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Again, the next day.
Rolling.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Reaching back, past the socks—a marble.

Who’d been the marble
of my dead brother
whose birthday was yesterday.