Lisa Compo

Small Haunts

That lighthouse ghost
shimmering, swallowing
haze—sea-stained red paint

a body soaking
up the faded edge. I wanted to be
cut silhouettes, brief

hands touching—
I know you

were sure. But our hands.
Fragile mists smudged
with wooded depth. Phantom

pine and salt
skin. What was

it, in us? Our bodies
marked, lawless. In pictures,
never still. We caught spirits, 

orbed poses, light-
headed. I was moving
far away in small 

frames. A hand floating
in wisps of sky.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Lisa Compo is an MFA candidate at UNC-Greensboro. She has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: The Journal, Rhino, Puerto del Sol, Sugar House Review, Cimarron Review and elsewhere.