HAUNTING THE PARLOR

I have come back to the parlor,
carefully choosing the dead
of night, watching the way the moon
comes in and gives a blue cast
to every piece of bric-a-brac.

There's the big, beveled mirror
I used to scare myself in,
as I stumbled in my cups through the dark,
groping toward the staircase—
now that looking glass shimmers like
the surface of a pool so deep
that if you entered it
you might discover secrets
even ghosts can't fathom,
the reasons why spirit
remembers flesh, why I haunt
my old haunts
and have returned again as through
a mirror's mirror
to find a piece of simple brass
sitting on its shelf—Grandmother's
dinner bell with a handle like a fish's head.

I still hear it ringing
through autumn air
sharp and insistent,
bringing me back home
to something sizzling on the stove,
to the squeal of the teapot,
and splash of running water,
this piece of metal
without a soul to save or lose
sitting safe and still.

I would ring it loudly once again,
if my arm were still an arm,
and go outside to wake the neighbors up
with this souvenir
that will outlast them too.

- Philip Miller

All rights to this poem belong to its author.

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