# Poems ghostly, i I don’t write poetry as much these days, but here we are again. I’m having a good night. I was playing around in my butt, not way in there, not lubed and going for depth, just having fun feeling around the outside, legs apart, touching around in between the cheeks. Saliva for lube. Pressing fingertips against the flesh. No intention to even get a knuckle in. Reslicking my fingers now and then with my tongue and going back at it and going back and forth between the two, groping my own butt and sucking the fingers that have been doing that. I rubbed one out, the same hand touching my dick and my ass and my mouth, any and all directions of travel. After I had finished, shot jizz on myself, I wiped up some with the hand and ate it, just what I do, and then I took a shower. A couple of weeks ago I shaved my arms and my legs. They’re kind of stubbly now but I still feel nice not having thick hair on my calves you could comb through. The shower, putting a soapy cloth over my kind-of recently shaved body was a joy. Afterwards I put back on the same shirt I had been wearing. It still smelled fine, and I like getting back into clothes that have been a little lived in. I like this shirt too. It has lots of holes in it, long sleeves, it used to be too tight on me but I’ve shrunk and it’s loose on me again. I sit now on my bed back against some pillows stacked against the headboard, knees resting wide apart, soles of my feet pressed together warmly, top warm in my cozy shirt, balls out in the cool air. I sat down with my tape player and big headphones, and started playing a kind of trippy tape. The light is dim, moonlight through closed blinds. It happened that the way I sat down, once I was all comfy, the shirt covered my package. I don’t mind having what I do, but I imagined I had a vagina instead, and kind of vaguely looked down at my legs as I listened to the tape, and ran my hands over my inner thighs, stroking the skin one way and then the other, caressing myself, feeling myself up. I am without the two things that were the bases of every day last year. My husband and hard liquor. I am utterly alone and sober. My life, these days, is grounded pleasures. Comedown. Minding my diet and making sure I still get out on walks. I’m having a good night. My left hand smells like ink from holding this notebook and writing on both sides of the pages. My right hand, well, you can guess. I am alone but I do like myself. I’m figuring it all out again. ghostly, ii I see ghost images of us when I’m out walking. Across the street, coming the other way, a slouched over scraggly man walking quickly to keep up with a tall dog whose nose is driving him forward on a mission. Coming down towards me from up the hill, someone in a skirt that is completely inappropriate for the winter night’s cold, and her dog going back and forth against the blacktop path, sniffing the small plants on one side of the path and then the other, checking in with what critters have run over this space, and finding a good place to poop on the crisp grass between the path and the trees. I see us when I am lying in bed with my eyes closed, and remembering the different ways we used to cuddle: spooning; side by side; tucked into one or the other’s belly; one night we slept under the stars while we were camping and it was cold and the blanket we shared helped just enough to where it was still a little uncomfortable, but how close we were together that night, I hope that I never forget it. Sometimes I see the things that it was easy to take for normal when I was living it, but now they seem like something from an inaccessible other world, how often I made out with a dog’s butt and he was glad for me to, how long of walks you were happy to go on. It is Veterans Day today. That wouldn’t mean anything to you. It doesn’t mean much to me either, but it’s something that crossed my mind as I was approaching the part of a trail where you had sex for the last time. Earlier on that walk, we had tried at another spot, where I still see the both of us often, a human looking around while crouched low to the ground as she encourages a dog to have some fun here mounting her, but on that day, at that spot, you hadn’t quite been able to get hard enough, and of course I didn’t want to pressure you, even as I knew that was probably the last note for that, for you. Then, as we continued along and we got to one more of our usual regular spots, we passed by it at first, as I worried others might be out and I wanted to check ahead. But when I saw we were alone, I asked if you wanted to double back to that second spot, and you did, and that time it worked, you mounted me, you did your thing. I’m glad that you got that. That your last time got to be one that you seemed to enjoy. ghostly, iii There are many moments for which it can be said that I, now, am the last one to remember them. There will come a day when no one does and they will be gone. Awroodrongk Awooo! drunk drunk drunk Awoo Awoo Awoo!!! drunk drunk drunk drunk drunk Awooooooooo!!!!!! drunk drunk drunk drunk drunk Forward, Forward, Forward I made a rum and sprite and it reminded me of our lifetime here this last era of your life. I had made mixed drinks since but this one brought me back so specifically feeling like I was there again strong drink in my throat at all hours and you. It did not bring you back to life. I didn’t think it was going to. I had no designs about that. I didn’t know it was going to remind me of you to begin with. I miss you. I think of you so often. When my first soulmate died I was younger more bent to extremes and I felt immense guilt for remembering any sexual moments he and I had shared, guilt for continuing to think of them. Grave robbing. Desecration. With you, you were such a pal, we were so happy to flatter each other sexually, I still continue to think of our sexual moments and feel no shame over thinking of them fondly. All of it is still so on the table to me. It was the nature of what we were to be happy to get each other off. I think sometimes of how you are not in this bed to cuddle and fall asleep with. I think very often of how you are not here to walk with me. I think of your penis sliding through my hand and tasting it in my mouth and I think of the smell of your belly, the solid feeling of patting your side as we were walking, the taste of your paws, and so much more, so much more. Your time to go came, there was no way around it. You are still so much a part of me. I have learned and improved, grown, around your knowledge and perspective, and now I stand alone but shaped by you evermore. There is a negative space inside of me shaped like a dog and the dog is very beautiful. ## ζ