Jackleen Holton
Jackleen Holton’s poems have been published in the anthologies The Giant Book of Poetry, California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology, and Steve Kowit: This Unspeakably Marvelous Life. Honors include Bellingham Review’s 49th Parallel Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, The Sun, and others.
I Never Sang to a Ghost
so I won’t ask the wait-staff
to sing to you today.
But since your granddaughter’s
birthday is the day after yours,
they’ll gather around our table,
regale her instead with sparklers
and cake, balloons, that cheerful song.
I don’t know how much you know
but surely you must have gotten word
that I finally had the surgery
so as not to have to reunite
with you anytime soon.
Because if you know anything,
you know I’m relieved you’re gone,
and that we only call you by the name
Grandma now, as you did shine so
in that brief supporting role.
But tonight at bedtime we’ll look up
and I’ll sing to you as if I had it back,
that hopeful child’s heart, and you
were once again the evening’s
first and brightest star.
