Seeing Ghosts

We came upon three homes
at the end of a road --
three double-wides,
identical to each other,
plain, with white siding,
on faded, sloping lawns.

Though I'd never seen the home
she grew up in,
I knew it was the middle one,
with walls that seemed to glow,
still warm
from her having slept within them.

There she was,
standing beside the road,
a teenager knee-deep in snow,
long red hair squashed
beneath a knit cap,
mittens caked in white
from shaping snowballs.

"The middle one,"
she said as we idled past.
In the yard, I saw her flop
down on her back,
making angels in the snow.

Scott Speck
01/09/2000