I wonder, would they snatch you if you smiled?

---

Ghosts are dogs that nose through the door

and come wagging to the bedside, thumping things.

Floating makes them cloddish, causes vertigo.

They solicit the living to ground them, fill them,

wisps to flesh again, to warm—

and when they touch the limp hand on the covers,

the sleeper flutters conscious, sees, and wails.

The sleeper dies and rises one more ghost.

---

I wonder, would they snatch you if you smiled?

---

Ghosts depart their bodies and their senses, meaning,

ghosts have loosened from their human binding.

It would be excessive to expect Old Tim 

and Granny Fran as they were, prior to decomposition

or transmigration or what have you. 

Tim and Fran have wandered like bears

on the caps between planes and come back

to try again with you. To tell you what they’ve learned

of the wide open and its god, of the magnetic 

fields and fog machines that detained them in confusion

over the lonely ice, wanting only to return and remind you

to eat your vegetables. Hold out.

Stay flesh and warm and sleeping.

---

But, smallminded sleeper, you hear none of their wonders

or warnings. You see the bear faces over the bed

and scream, snapping the last of their human bonds,

and like animals in panic, bears or dogs, 

they snatch you up. 

---

Had you swallowed your fear in a wary smile 

and peered into the eyes over the muzzles—

---

But that’s not for me to wonder. I cannot say whether,

when the time comes, I would smile or scream.

Some follies are beyond control.

Until we are turned out of our bodies, we are bound.