SK Grout

Ghosting

Some nights the bones plant fog
            and not even a murmuring ficus

can move the path. I have not yet
            learnt the difference between motion

and momentum. It is the time of year
            when evening keeps the window open

with a welcome chill—a small portal
            to tomorrow’s clarity. Hope can be measured

in increments of light, developing like
            chemical formula into image. But there is no

clearer way to express this: I have
            never been able to taste its technicolor

nor balance equanimity. If every morning
            there is a crack, to blue the thought of light,

what about the elemental force of wind or rain
            or sun it takes to expel the fog. Tomorrow

I wish to wake with different obsessions. A slice
            of ginger every day to thin the memory.

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SK Grout (she/they) grew up in Aotearoa/New Zealand, has lived in Germany and now splits her time as best she can between London and Auckland. She is the author of the micro chapbook to be female is to be interrogated (2018, the poetry annals). She holds a post-graduate degree in creative writing from City, University of London and is a Feedback Editor for Tinderbox Poetry. Her work also appears in Ambit, Cordite Poetry Review, trampset, Banshee Lit, Parentheses Journal, Barren Magazine and elsewhere. More information here: https://skgroutpoetry.wixsite.com/poetry