Brittany N. Jaekel

Your mother once said all the Hamlet men seemed to walk beyond their deaths. I listened
politely. I was never one to believe in ghosts. Down here I wear my own stone crown, skirts
of startled soil. Sometimes the stars ignite the dark, & I’ll find myself more breathless,
heartless. Once, I imagined the pitch & yaw of the bird in your soul: You, in court. You,
among fools. I would have been your branch, unsettled by the storm but unbroken. Instead,
I reach through nights of dirt. Is that you, my lord, arguing yet with the fog?