Over the damp-blackened slates, the harbor

lights douse and sizzle in the sloping rain,

heaps of cables, netted crates, sacks of grain

unloaded under oilskins; no ship's master

on these docks, signaling like a wrecker,

but what swarms to my lantern in a skein

of foxfire and the bruised scent of vervain

could never drown: I glimpse them only after

their faces have fragmented into earth,

their coldly limned bones, leaf-rags of clothing

restitched, enfleshed within this storm-shot gleam

where my fingers cramp with winter and warmth

invisibly: this candle guides none living,

only the ghosts of children through my dreams.