Today's poem is by Melanie McCabe

If There Are Ghosts
       

If there are ghosts, they are hapless. Not even
crafty enough to rap upon the glass or help the wind
to push open a door we thought was closed. Somewhere

they must rail at their inefficacy, must kick
in pique at the impotence of their changed selves. If
they have voices, not even dogs can hear them.

If ghosts have a language we can listen to, then it is
static. White noise. Something so omnipresent
that we have to remind ourselves it is always

there in the air just below the air we know.
If we invite them in, bid them sit down in the chair
we've drawn up next to our own, how will we know

if they have complied? Not even the heat
of our palms that we extend in supplication
will alter a degree, though perhaps their own hands

answered ours as soon as we asked, covered ours
with a colorless and glacial longing. They are poor
advertisements for the other side. We pine

for testimonials, a four-star system of reviews, before
committing ourselves. But the dead are lousy salesmen.
And we must purchase, nonetheless.

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Copyright © 2023 Melanie McCabe All rights reserved
from The Night Divers
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission