Tenants

I had lived for some time in a foreign country
without my knowing. When I returned I’d forgotten

how to use my voice, a tinny, suspect thing.
Someone had left the faucet running; someone

drained all but a crystal ring. I trailed a finger
along its salt pinked to the four walls and furniture.

There was at least one ghost of my father, thinner
than memory, in ritual-trance weaving Morton

streams through our rental home. The ragged bunch
of us followed his frantic pacing—he blessed

every room, cradling the yellow-skirted girl
safe in her dark cylinder, orbed against rain.

My face pressed to the rug, I taste the briny grains
sown once to protect us from harm.

Marlo Starr holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins and a PhD in English from Emory University. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Threepenny Review, I-70 Review, Berfrois, Queen Mob's Teahouse, and elsewhere.