greet the ghost

I greet the ghost in colors of dusk and summer, the latest shade of a losing streak caught in the shape of grape vines tangled in the pine. The dog in the dark cracks away at dead bone, pressing feathers with jaw and tooth. The print of heat still smoldering at your sky seared flesh. That glance that is the root of all appetite.

My eyes are wiped with the lens of memory. My thoughts are shipwrecked along the stretch of your skin. These lapsed speeches of lost longings, these stilted passes made as a car radio blare. The smell of sunlight lightly salting your hair. This blatant reach of the fanciful distance trawling through your name like fingers skimming the sea. Hunger and haunting clinging to the core.

My face is burned, my breath straining. Ersatz stars beating haloes from my head. Bug spray toxic and wind caressed, I slow and slow some more. The day flees as this ghost approaches, the taste of smoke all the light I lost. I shift on sore hips and back-ache shoulders, spill my tongue toward the complaint that makes most sense. I watch that glow dwindling in the distance. I watch as those thoughts sink with-in sight of your shore.