The Ghost Speaks

I forgot how sweaty it was
being alive, the slow creep down
the gutter of the spine, the flush
when the sweat hits the thigh
and slides down until split
by the twin divots behind the knee,
legs like paddles trying for
some kind of shore, the flounder
of moving through wet air.

When it gets like this,
ninety-seven and too humid,
the streets are so empty
I can walk them at noon,
cicada clicks aligned with
the shuddering rows
of air conditioners
rambling toward their
eventual ruin. Inside
the people lie like corpses,
felled by weather, breathing heavy.

I’d forgotten how
their longing brims up
until it spills over, making sticky
their palms and faces,
their bodies etched
with salt and memory.

I remember how they break
when they tumble,
their open mouths full of
a harsh keening, how inside
they are animals, vicious,
and how they killed me with
that animal violence, how
I sunk into a rotten trembling,
and now I speak
where they can’t reach me.

Ghosts don’t mind
ice or fire, we move
in a place past hunger,
strong because
we’ve already lost.

When we see them,
we see how need
makes them weak,
   see the way
grasping rips them apart.

Their loneliness burns
              like neon
making its way through fog.

Image:  “It’s Good To Be Handy, Even In The Afterlife” by garlandcannon , licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Ann V. DeVilbiss

Ann V. DeVilbiss has had work in Crab Orchard Review, Day One, Public Pool, and elsewhere, with work forthcoming in CALYX. She is the recipient of an Emerging Artist Award from the Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, which is supported by state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Latest posts by Ann V. DeVilbiss (see all)

• The Ghost Speaks - October 1, 2017