Interiority
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Mary Cresswell

lives on New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast and has published in NZ, the US, Australia and the UK.

Her most recent book, Trace Fossils, appeared in 2011 and has been well reviewed. Please see her profile at the New Zealand Book Council.


—Back to Interiority Contents/Issue Links—

Ghosts The final line is from Marie Ponsot’s “The story after the story”

I lie awake again. All my ghosts come welling,
not independent creepers, one by one;
but a caravan of noise to kill my sleep.

I want this or that one to take a real shape
as they beat their collective breast, wailing.
I can’t deal with such a horde. If one alone

would stalk up, familiar and battle-worn,
I could knock it down and go back to sleep,
free of ghosts, God willing. Until then,

I am willing them one by one to sleep.



 
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