Are they waiting?

Here's a poem I just wrote.

Are they waiting?
By Laura McHale Holland

Are they waiting in rays of sunlight
kissing the ivy that creeps
across the courtyard?

When I sleep,
do they peek in my refrigerator
straighten album pictures
check on my daughter
pet the dog?

Forever suspended
do they ask
what might have been?

Would they have danced the Watusi,
campaigned for George McGovern
joined the Peace Corps?

What scars would have
etched their skin?

What songs would they
have sung to me,
my brothers and sisters

never born
to a mother
who choked
her breath
by rope one
long ago
lonesome
afternoon?