Kathleen A. Wakefield

THE INVISIBLE STENOGRAPHER LISTENS TO THE DEAD

Some nights they come to her, voices
calling from the edge of sleep, plaintive, distressed,
a faceless chorus discontent with how they fared
in the annals of history, the general protesting the victory
gone unnoticed, the diva insisting it was she
who sang like an angel, the mother still weeping
for losses too large to be held in the words she was allowed.

Where are the others, those contented
with how they are known now—the simple facts of a life,
the chain of memories, a few lines from a letter, a small invention perhaps;
and those for whom that was never important,
under whose radiant care someone else flourished.

—from Rattle #37, Summer 2012