I’ve always been tickled pink by the thought of séances. To call back the dead and learn what they have to tell us: what a marvelous thing, and what a frightening one. I’ve never participated in a séance, and I’m not really planning to: but it has been very funny seeing memes over the past (almost) two years proclaiming that Zoom meetings are our era’s séances.
The great poet Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) happened to publish a poem evoking a séance in our fortieth issue, in October 2004. As a poet, I often find that the really knockout part of a good poem is often the last line, and on that count I find this poem immensely satisfying. Here is “evening and my dead once husband,” a beautiful piece indeed.
evening and my dead once husband
Lucille Clifton
evening and my dead once husband
rises up from the spirit board
through trembled air i moan
the names of our wayward sons
and ask him to explain why
i fuss like a fishwife why
cancer and terrible loneliness
and the wars against our people
and the room glitters as if washed
in tears and out of the mist a hand
becomes flesh and i watch
as its pointing fingers spell
it does not help to know
