A Girl and Her Dead Dog Play with a Ouija Board

Sara Patterson

 

so there’s a shattered bell that will not ring 

a girl and her lover are drowning in her hair 

is a pearl and a green velvet ribbon 

they’ll be found in a canal full of gowns of women 

 

not yet married a priest’s voice a shadow in a nave 

there is a net a dome a sky full of buttresses 

flying from fear of pews and marble a dog drowns 

in your grandmother’s crystal glass her gift 

 

to a bride who will not see her wedding day 

a veil and heels of silk to keep dress hem’s clean 

I look for you on sidewalks but you’re up on the roof 

wearing yellow your fingers made of rings 

 

from your dead sister walk with me to the market 

over a wooden bridge that was once marble 

there are no paved streets here once 

you would have held my hand once 

 

you would have walked with me once you said 

Remember the church basement filled with water 

the family dog died the day you left

 

 

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Sara Patterson is a Toronto-based writer. Their work has appeared in Humber Literary Review (forthcoming), Electric Literature, Minola Review, Plenitude Magazine, and Sinking City Review, among others. Find a selection at: saralpatterson.com.