Monument

You believed in ghosts no more than love’s

laughing stars on the ceiling, your whole arm

a glittering chandelier, miles of spine

snaking the twisting girls, bare-legged

and asking you to dance.

Outside, a haggard god sucks on a cigarette,

sobering, returning to earth

on his naked foot like the Arabian dervish—

longs for their heat like a baby

under mizzling clouds. The moon is nowhere

to be seen, my pale-faced friend;

the polished pearl

of her swinging eye unable to bear

the hinged door crying them into a lock

of skin and breath, the damp meeting of flesh

that undresses itself

in the perfumed hours.

Alone I will think of your floating hands

and the dancing-girls, your ghost possessive,

skull obsessive

until even my hip is a monument

raised in the memory

of your dirty hardening stone.