Perhaps our ghosts wear the sequined sarongs
and turquoise plumes we would never don in life—
string bikinis in the grocery store checkout,
crystals squinting from our belly buttons,
campfire red hair wind-tossed and tangled.

Perhaps we laugh so hard, we snort in public,
sweat splashing on a stranger’s perfumed skin.
We swing our Botero hips, pucker crimson lips
for kisses from passersby. We befriend all
the invisible canines nipping at our skinless heals.

Perhaps we dance Limbo, lowering the stick,
no worry for pulled hamstrings or broken backs,
so we shimmy and twist, play air guitar on our ribs,
hit the mosh pit, body slam and body surf.
We call in sick, perhaps we never go to work.

Perhaps we lick the nape of a lost lover’s
neck, just to remind them we once tangoed
in the blooming garden of their chest before
neglecting to pull weeds or water thirsty roots.
Perhaps we envelop them with quiet amends.

Perhaps our ghosts sip martinis and toast the stars,
awake all night, lake lapping in our conch shell ears,
endless blue-black waters echoing the loon’s
tremolo, its seamless switch in pitch to remind us
that another is always present on a distant shore.