Nancy Kricorian: Ghost Children

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Ghost Children read by the author, Nancy Kricorian.

At lunchtime I stand
at the stove spooning soup
into three white bowls.
My children eat bread
at the table. They laugh
at the milk moustaches that
I wipe from their faces.

On the pantry floor I see
the narrow shadows of the
other children, the one
whose bones I left in the
desert in a garden of bones.
The sand is still in my hair;
their high voices in my ears.

My American children can't
see their unlucky brother and
sister who follow close by
my skirt. Mairig, the ghosts
complain, we are hungry. Mairig,
give us something to eat.


Copyright Nancy Kricorian. Used here by kind permission of the author.
This poem has appeared in Ararat, Summer 1995.