Note: As a hospice nurse I spend much of my time taking care of those who are about to pass over into whatever it is that waits for us when we are no longer alive. The Mystery, as they say. The Romantic poet John Keats called it his Darkling, as in “speak darkling, I listen.” Personally I have no idea what to make of death, other than that, like puberty, it’ll probably change everything. Then, again, maybe not. I’ve always been fond of the fairy tales about ghost lovers, when things like pregnancies and STDs and all the mundane problems of sex have been solved and all you need to do is haunt the bedroom of your beloved because for all of us there are somethings worth coming back for.

* * *

“When you’re dead, you’ll regret not
having fun with your genital organs.”
— Joe Orton’s diary, 23 July, 1967.

Don’t waste this life, darkling. When I’m all ghost
I will spend my time watching you undress.
The dead are voyeurs. Perverts. They are host
to a thousand lusts they cannot possess,
like me. Like a chaste nun who masturbates
in the after-life. We all make amends.
My dark one; he said, “She who menstruates
is now unclean.” “She who hungers, offends.”
That’s an infidel talking. He who “Scorns
the gift of divine orgasm” deserves
to be a cuckold. Billy-goat rough. Horns
to the devil. We are prophets of curves
and cocks, clits and cum. All sex is sacred.
Why wait til I’m dead to see you naked?