The lake gobbled up the center of town—

 

the buoy, bending and bobbing, could be a girl, bending

to touch her knee, the waves,

 

the place where, after cholera,

the poor bodies were tossed,

 

bending as if to touch the bodies again—

 

bending down in the center of town.

 

The buoy is the ghost of a girl

before Lake Erie gobbled up the square,

before cholera led the bodies to the water,

then to the shore—

 

She wades to her knees in water over her head,

washing her arms in the center of town—

tall windows of the Piety Hill castles,

shadows of Williams Street.

 

The Old Plat is left, the hungry lake’s left it alone,

gurgling gravel, warm August tide that can’t freeze

but does—then creaks and moans till spring

and the buoys wiggle free again.

 

She only bends, never dives, only dips

her hair, only wets again her wet breast,

this ghost at the center of town—

 

this dusky sand as the night comes up,

and she could be me,

she could be you—

a girl ghost in the center of town—

before the square, sidewalk, gazebo, carriage,

pedestrians all at the bottom—

twenty-four feet down and halfway to Canada—

 

She holds a mirror in the west basin—

holds it and turns it, a different lens—

this girl ghost,

the center of town

before the lake gobbled it up.

 

The sun comes and she’s still there—she’ll turn

and wave

and wave

 

and wave

from the center of town.