mist is water
without surface
and yet it will not
only swallow the past but
bring it up again too
if it feels in the mood
let me tell you how
it steps through the vapour
towards you now
not like a twin trapped
in a mirror reaching both hands
towards you through the glass
or a pinniped
coming up for air
from the unsounded deep
not like a sleeper breaking
through a dream’s stillness
into the clang and dry of the waking
no it emerges
composed and unhurried
moving backwards like a riddle
a girl wearing not so much
a dress as a violent
blaze of chenille
determined to make you
say that you now
believe in ghosts