Laura Grace Weldon

When The Dead Visit

People I know tell me their dead visit
disguised as a cardinal at the window,
a butterfly fluttering a finger length away,
a fox watching from a tree’s shadow.

I’m told their dead leave pennies on sidewalks,
add songs to a playlist, stop a car spinning on ice,
lie next to them in a lonely bed
just before the alarm goes off.

Maybe it’s the people I miss
who grace my empty space
with a scent, a faint tune,
a memory I’d almost forgotten.

But I never say,
I loved them,
past tense.
I love them still.

Laura Grace Weldon lives in an Ohio township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, serves as Braided Way editor, and chronically maxes out her library card. Laura was Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books.