Your Sin Will Find You

I am the ghost
Who forgets she is dead.
I wander bare-toed
Screaming at strangers
On their own land
For speaking in foreign tongues:

They do not see me anymore.

I was a little girl here.
I played hide and seek,
And sang my little ditties
For the men I thought
Were noble merchant sailors-
Pirates! Pirates,

And I was lost.

I have a mortal wound
That no longer bleeds
Every face at whom I stare
Reflects murky visions of murderers-
Every voice over my shoulder
Is the vague whisper in my hair:

An echo of the last whisper I heard.

They all took turns at the stab
Did they dump me in the river?
They were unafraid
Because I am unloved.
My Father returns.
He rides through town.

He is searching for me.

Oh, the mess He will find!
Wandering out of place,
Out of mind, out in the cold-
Like Phantom Ophelia
Waterlogged and wrapped in weeds
Dead skin sticky with river alluvium.

What will He think of me in this state?
What will He do to them?