Poor ghost,
dead as trousers hung to dry,
filled not with flesh but breezes,
wearing a see-through body
made of disappointed breath,
naked to your rattling bones,
sillier than sad.
All you can do is annoy us in the night
and amuse us some by day.
You were murdered once
here in our happy home,
a knife through the heart,
a cord around the neck,
a bullet in the brain.
You made the local papers, that is all.
The details on microfilm.
I’ve never bothered to look you up,
curious, but not curious enough.
You haunt us, innocent though we are.
You will or cannot leave your dying place.
So wronged,
you only joke for justice,
move the chair in the guest bedroom,
knock books off shelves,
rattle a string of artificial pearls,
and laugh a little when you fool us fair,
and cry your misty tears,
which we mistake for steam
on bathroom mirrors.
_________________________
written in 1996 for a friend who
grew up in a haunted house