Why Do Ghosts Wear Clothes?
William James said because we want them to. I don’t know why
creases of crinoline or floaty nighties would make us believe,
why legs are liveried or breasts bound tight from modesty.
Shouldn’t they be naked? Surely, the dead are beyond decency.
Or are these really the clothes they died in? A knife through silk cuts
short the life of shirts as much as, well, a life? The soul’s explosion
from the body takes with it the suit’s soul and, so, the ghost of clothes?
No wonder they’re sad or pissed, bound in ruffles and celluloid necks.
Could we at least send them fresher fashion? Chain stores could
last-rites overstock and monogram pentagrams like cut tags
at the outlet mall. Purgatory as the Loehmann's changing room.
Or, if it’s new if it’s new to you, then even our old stuff
might make a splash. Donation centers ringed in ash and receipts
for relief from death taxes. A whole host of plans
to clear our homes of pants we've grown too fat for.
My home is haunted. I’ve seen sad, clear hands slip through my closet
and I think she likes my jeans with the leather patch. Or maybe
her brother’s shoulders stretch wide as mine and he could wear my shirts?
Really, though, she should. It’s cliché, but that’s all I’m left with.
Late evening, when the little moonlight catches the curtain turned
to ectoplasm and I can’t sleep from the heart-thump of the past,
when window scrapes aren't nearly as scary as another night
shifting alone in bed, she could waft through the door in my old oxford
and sit, so light she doesn't move the sheets. A lost button gaps
the shirt and she asks me to please sew a new one,
it's her favorite thing to wear, and so I bend there, threading
the holes to close the gap holding a body so nearly gone.