Haunt

When I'm a ghost, I'll
haunt you, but delicately
a passing shadow on the page

when you're reading on the
train, a sigh behind the door
when you walk through--a breath

all warmth and longing on your
neck and when you turn, of
course, nobody there.

No chains will rattle silence
from your sleep, no sobs nor heavy tramp
of feet in attic rooms disturb

your peaceful afternoons; just finger-
tips on frosted glass, a message
indecipherable writ by

no human hands. Just the soft
occasional chill as if someone
were watching as you step

out of the shower, with water
droplets bright upon your cheek
or streaming down the river of your spine.

And when you bend to towel
your dripping legs, the unaccountable
brush of ghostly lips

curling like mist under the swell
of breasts, trailed down along the bone-
plate where your ribs meet at your heart

--you won't know I was there until you see
(much later) on your fragrant naked thigh
the pale gray outline of my grasping hand.

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