Ghost Parade

Shannon Rampe

Ghost Parade

We march in shadow parades, in masks reflecting the fullness of the universe, our eyes the light of moons, our tongues frogs and snakes. Our ancestors walk behind us–ghosts of ghosts.

Our skeletons are on the outside now. We tap out the beat of our stride on our bones. At our feet, a thousand tiny birds, promenading corpses, songs vanished into the baking atmosphere of nothingness.

Your breast is scarred, upon your head a crown of black hooks holding back the world. I carry a dove in my breast, heart in my mouth. My white hair a waterfall bleeding into a sky of yellowed paper. I open my mouth to sing.
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Inspired by Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams I by Ibrahim El-Salahi

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Shannon Rampe is a speculative fiction writer living in Alexandria, Virginia, where he works as a project manager and tends a very small garden. He is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop. He is a semi-finalist for the Writers of the Future award and he has fiction forthcoming in Stupefying Stories. He has, on occasion, been known to do drunken yoga.