Ancestors

My parents are ghosts now, ancestors 
who enter my dreams, sit with me in a circle

during morning meditation. We talk about small things— 
the keys my mother dropped in the snow

on her walk home from work. The chili 
she’d made as an antidote to the cold.

I tell them I’m studying mysticism. I tell them stories 
about St. Theresa—how, as a child,

she began to walk in circles 
when she first heard the word forever,

repeating it over and over—forever 
becoming flesh, flesh becoming word.

I tell them we’ve finished dividing their belongings 
and that I’ve hung the seagull painting

in our living room—how, as a child, 
I’d always thought the boulder to the right of the seagull

was the long, sad face of a basset hound, 
while the boulder to the left was Jesus—

how he must have appeared in my book 
of Sunday lessons—delicately sketched

with room for the imagination. Of course, 
they’re still there—Jesus and the dog.

I can’t un-see them. Though the sun, 
in the painting—more like the moon on a cloudy day—

is easy to miss.