Mitch Grabois

In the old schoolhouse in which I live

the ghosts of farm children

wake me with their rambunctiousness

I make guttural noises in my throat

and believe I am speaking to them through the ether

in Hebrew

and that they understand me

I ask them to let me sleep for a couple more hours

before I have to go to work in the mill

These children became adults

Many farmed, others went off to towns and cities,

became mathematicians, shoe salesmen, carpenters’ wives

Now they’re all gone

into the ether

into Madame Voslowski’s

jumbled, unformed universe