An Afternoon Ghost

Bows, gentlewomanly, I’m enjoying

The decay. She’s welcome, often as not,

Given her preferred time of day. Stately,

Neither clothed, nor nude, nor robed, she’s a glow

Without limbs, not floating, an upright shade

Like a pillar self-contained, a soft light

With a kindly face and a kinder gaze.

She’s here to offer you her assistance,

Her advice on death after life. (During

Life and dying, death is terrifying,

But after they’re over, it’s not even

Death. It’s being as nonliving being.)

The difficulties aren’t heavens or hells.

The difficulties have been left behind

To add suffering to the left behind.

You see, she clarifies, decay is birth,

Exactly as so many old poets

And self-congratulatory mystics

Have said. Fun as any change to observe.

What’s sorrowful is your amputation

As unique behaviors, cut from the minds

Of everyone who would like remain

In contact with you. Instantaneous,

Unlike the smokeless burning of decay,

From the moment that you left, no one could

Carry on any real conversation

With you, be comforted by your presence.

She brightens or fades but does not waver.

She gathers her afternoon skirts to her,

Dhaka muslin woven of sheerest sun.