Phantasm

John Gray

You are not human;
you are a poltergeist
trapped in a meat suit.
Tea leave salves,
moonlight strolls,

these calm your restless spirit.
You possess a skeleton
but you are not made of bones.
Cartilage fades without you,
flesh slips away,
blood solidifies a corpse.

But on a rasping breath
you will leave it,
drifting from desert winds
to tropical typhoons.
You shall hear songs and whispers,
prayers and laments,
privy to the world’s secrets.

And a day may come
when a breeze carries you
through the hollows of
your abandoned crown
and you will rise from burial dirt,
a memory made to haunt the world.