Don’t be jealous of the dead. Their yearning
is like yours. “Ggiskonyé ne?” That pain

filling all her voice asks. “Are you getting
undressed?” I take her absinthe and regain

all those old tensions, those itches. To kiss
a ghost is to feel her raw tingle glow

in your flesh, echo in the sky, bad bliss
from the bowels of the earth. She has no

bowels but — she’s horny as a hellcat
with two cunts. I have been moonstruck before.

When at last I undressed before you that
was mad but you had said more, always more.

The dead are like us: loving cock and cunt
and all that’s odd, loving what is different.

][][

NOTE:
In the Bodéwadmi (Potawatomi) language, “ggiskonyé ne?” translates as, “are you getting undressed?”