At night I am visited by not three ghosts but many

The older I get, the more gather before me.

Why won’t these ghosts stay in their graves?

My dreams appear first; they arrive grandly

As if driven in by hearse.

You’ve left us so long ago, they say so fondly.

They carry a mirror and in it I must gaze

Youth wasted on the young, it says.

Chasing rainbows leading nowhere.

I see the tiny crow prints around my eyes

“Mirror,” I say, “j’accuse! Such lies!”

The mirror says nothing, it’s just me in there.

I awaken and the shadows disperse

The spirits of the once-were are now not;

I sob in my pillow for that which is gone —

Why won’t these ghosts stay in their graves?