Haunts

Don't be afraid, old son, ifs only me,

though not as I've appeared before,
on the battlements ot your signature,
or margin ot a book you can't throw out,
arkened shop tront where your tace
first shocks itself into a mask ot mine,
but here, alive, one Christmas long ago
when you were three, upstairs, asleep,
and haunting me because I conjured you
the way that child you were would cry out
waking in the dark, and when you spoke
in no child's voice but out of radio silence,
the hall clock ticking like a radar blip,
a bottle breaking faintly streets away,
you said, asI say now, Don't be afraid.