Cowrie I

Driving home from work ill, i see a ghost in the passenger seat.

Head bare to the wind,
I am singing through my sickness.
This Etta James voice
Blowing from a body
Only brown from sun,
While a child called Cowrie
Stares at me through green eyes
And waits.

No accusation.
Waiting for words i don't have,
Explanations that always sound
False.

Unopened, she comes full grown.
Seventeen, ghost child,
Pure potentiality,
Who will never swing
From my hands, ask me "why?"
Sing with a voice so like mine,
she confuses strangers.

Is it a lie
When I tell her
No life is better than one half mine,
That actualities outweigh her potential,
Other children need me more than she?

You are beautiful
I tell this child that will never be.
Ghost with green eyes,
Waiting for me.