Living with Delia

She would sleep head in the closet for shade.
Sometimes I found her encased in the sheets
like a plant cell photosynthesizing,
seventy percent lighter and rising
from the hardwood floor like she’d been greeted
by her dead mother or by some low-grade
ghost of St. Albans. Bacon… She’d mutter,
What’s a theory? Belief without proof.

The neighbors were scared. One saw her jam
a broom apart to get onto the roof
from the porch for her prayers, landlord be dammed.
Do you hear that? Coming from the gutters?
she yelled down to me, as if I could hear it.
She blanched. Shh – It’s the Holy Spirit.