Patricia O'Hara
Talking Board
When I was a girl on hot August nights,
she and I played Ouiji Board. Sun and moon
shone down on the alphabet landscape. Sun:
moon. Two pairs of hands in magnetic flight,
our twenty fingers on the pointer write
inconclusive answers to where/why (sun?
moon?) has daddy gone tonight. Mother moon/
child sun beckon shadow father to light.
Alone in my bed, I later wonder
what magic makes that pointer glide. The phone
some nights rends my dark, thick sleep. Mornings under
the couch the board is stowed. The New York train
left town by day. On August nights, thunder
spoke words to my mother and me, alone.
