To the Ghost at my Cradle

Dear ghost,

Hello, and I hope I find you well, 

My first, my dearest, my constant compatriot -- 

how have you been!

Are you still a whisper,

letting those who meet you know you are there

from only the chill in the air and the sudden silence?

Or have you begun to give out pictures of yourself,

cut into jigsaw pieces,

and wholly impossible to fit together?

Dear phantom,

have you sat in with other children as they heard their mother cry?

when they asked you what to do, did you only shush them, 

rocking their cradle like a sea-tossed-ship,

until they were seasick,

until they were dizzy,

until you thinned yourself out to paint the whole house

in silence, confusion, and worry?

Ghost from my cradle, 

you are a tough one to placate --

but in eighteen years I have found

you are much easier to befriend 

then to banish.