Sandra never said she
loved me, not even the
night she sat on my lap
and we kissed so long
the room grew warm,
nor the night we lay
together and watched
an old western on TV.
When she died she was
my first death. I turned
out to be someone she
might have loved. This
is what I tell myself any
time her ghost appears,
wearing the daisy chain
Sandra forged in life.
(Image of a pretty tree in Silverdale, Washington)
Saragun Springs 
I found the line about it being the first death very poignant and a sad counterpoint to the idea of first love. Nice – dd
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Corey
This one is truly haunting (not meant as a crack about her ghost). The ancient lament is clear and fresh. The language discovers new ideas.
Leila
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Corey
Leila is right, this one is a heartbreaker in the best human way (because it appeals to the depths of the reader’s humanity while ignoring surface-level things that are much less meaningful).
The lines “I turned / out to be someone she / might have loved” capture the essence of the tragedy of the unlived life. (The fact that this is speculative and uncertain makes it even more realistic.)
By the “unlived life,” I mean the life that might have been lived, and was not lived.
The fact that it really COULD have been, but was not, is one of the saddest things this world has to offer any of us.
This poem makes the simplest language poetic through internal rhyme, concrete diction, spoken rhythms, restraint and understatement.
The fact that we don’t quite know whether he really sees her ghost or not leaves the reader hanging in doubt (and possibility) in the best of thoughtful ways. Also, there are many ways to see ghosts without actually seeing them. Probably every last one of us has nothing less than a mind teeming with ghosts, and this poem is a story about that sad and reassuring fact.
Dale
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Harrowingly powerful, that line: ‘I turned / out to be someone she / might have loved.’ Tremendous.
Geraint
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