"Vanished Passport, Wiltshire County, England" by Cece Peri

Vanished Passport, Wiltshire County, England

Some guests at this 14th century farmhouse think the bouncing light seen descending the stairs at 3 A.M. is a ghost. Others think it’s an inter-dimensional orb. I’m too distracted by my missing passport to care about the light, too focused on the flight I have to catch the next day back to the States. One of the guests, a man from Holland in town for a psychic fair, offers to help. His spirit guides tell him that the light on the stairs is the flame of a grease lamp carried by a girl, about seventeen. Her uneven gait, caused by a metal and leather leg brace, makes the light seem to jump.

“That’s who has your passport,” he says. “She thinks she needs it.”

“What good is it to her,” I ask, “if she doesn’t look like me?”

Then his gaze deepens, and I realize his spirit guides have told him that she does. At 2:50 A.M., in my attic room, I speak directly to her, “You can stay or you can go, but I’m flying home in the morning.”


at first light, passport
atop a Narnia book
missing for years

Cece Peri

Cece Peri’s poems have appeared in Malpais Review, Luvina: The Los Angeles Issue, Askew, NoirCon, Beyond the Lyric Moment, Spillway, San Diego Poetry Annual, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond and will be included in the upcoming Los Angeles issue of Pratik. She received poetry awards from NoirCon, Arroyo Arts Collective, and honorable mention in the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize. One of her poems, “Trouble Down the Road,” was featured in Poetry.LA’s YouTube video series “They Write by Night” hosted by Suzanne Lummis. Cece was born and raised in New York City, but now calls Los Angeles home.

Headshot: Anthony Paul

Photo Credit: Shayne Schultz