Six months after death, my mother
has come to haunt me. Ever
the opportunist, she finds the virus
lockdown a handy time to slide
into the slot for my shadow, as if
I faced the sun at an angle of forty-
five degrees. There she is, darkening
my starboard periphery un-
smiling, reaching cold mist hands
into mine to whisk the eggs, fold
the sheets, sort the papers, choose
spools of thread for stitching
another face mask. This is her kind
of catastrophe, rife with irony and fear
and small domestic refinements
of infinite unimportance as we sail
about the house and yard, posing
for no one. I once thought
ghosts made “appearances,” but she
eludes sight: dodgy, palpable,
squeezing in for one last clutch
at the stuff of my survival.