Phantom Limbs

by Ben Banyard

We carry our dead around,
shoulder their heft in empty sleeves,
veins and arteries splayed under
the duvet, a gaping trouser leg.

They are the ghostly remains,
felt keenly, unexpectedly
by senses too slow for absence;
broken links to a failed shortcut.

Conjured by the incidental
they were eased out from us
spidering their names in cards,
ephemera strewn for trip hazards.