The ghosts of Sicily are rising again
Searching for me in the scorched hills
Slithering up the mountain from dusty hot graves
The donkey brays
They find me dreaming of Taormina
Tossed in sea-swept sleep
Smelling of Etna sulfur
Sliding on fire-licked lava
They speak Greek and broken dialect
They whisper you’re crazy
They scream I hate you
A malocchio slips
Under the door
Crawls into a jacket pocket
Superstitious salt left decades ago stings and brings tears
I am safe for now
Among the ruined columns the conquered spirits swarm
Among the petrified corpses the angry phantoms
Prowl
A strega winks at me with a cloudy eye and knocks over the salt shaker
The ghosts of Sicily are howling again
Amy Galloway holds a MFA in writing. She is also a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, teacher, yogi, and always, a reader. She has had several poems published in both print (“The Clot” a poem published in the October 2015 issue of Chronogram magazine and “Cicadas” in the July/August issue of Cicada magazine), and on-line journals (“Run” in the issue #8 of 521magazine, “Collided” and selections from “Lady Sings the Blues…” in Drunk Monkeys). She is currently working on a collection of poetry, as well as a middle grade novel involving a girl and a bee.
