How Do Ghosts Keep Warm?
After Coral Hull’s How Do Detectives Make Love? (1998)
how do ghosts keep warm?
do they lie next to the humming heater/ in a darkness that doesn’t notice/ do they coil into hotel pillows/ stuffed with feathers that cling to some sickly perfume/ do they press themselves into the creases/ hoping for a thread of warmth left by someone else/ only to find a damp fog/ a memory of a breath that/ never existed/
how do ghosts keep warm/ do they light the stove/ but there isn’t one/ just a shitty mini fridge/ full of someone else’s leftovers and a kettle pretending to be/ useful/
do they like the glow of the kitchen light at dawn/ watch as the sink bathes in a rectangle of sun/ do they try to catch it/ only for blank hands to/ whisper through/
do they linger/ forget how to leave/ almost look at themselves in the mirror/ but with no buttons to undo/ just a hollowed coat of a body/ floating/ neither absent nor present but/ some cold in-between/
do they wish for dust to land on them/ instead of rotting paintings and velvet ottomans/ that never deserved it in the first place/ is it blood-curdling to them/ the way they’re overlooked/
when the bell boy passes, do they run toward the door/ fleeing/ freeing/ only to
cower at the
peephole;
what if they don’t like what they see
how do ghosts keep warm/ do they stand under a boiling shower/ just to see if they’d feel/ just to prove they’re not real/ just to never get clean/ do they cry as they do it/ do they thrash/ in silence/ imitating a pain they can only recall from a dream/
do they reshape their fogged masses into something loveable/ seeable/ do they parade out on the hotel balcony/ threatening to jump/ waiting for a witness/ knowing they’ll have to come back later to watch the ceiling mould/
do they touch themselves/ to remember where they end/ fingers drifting through vaporous valleys/ that slip from them as if/ silk off a cracked mannequin/ a borrowed shape/ a sting of fiction
do they wait for the phone to ring/ perched on the edge of the king mattress/ deciding how to say their name/ as if someone might call/ ask, “how was your stay?”/ do they clutch the receiver and listen/ to nothing but air conditioning/
how do ghosts keep warm/ is it with small violences/ watching the lamp flicker into its own end/ standing near the television to harbour/ the vibrations of murderous news/ only to be followed by thirty minutes of commercial/ do their eyes ever unglue
do they fix the do-not-disturb sign/ just in case/ so someone passing might think of newlyweds/ sleeping late/ or a party that ended too well/ that the room is warm/ with someone else’s joy/ that its filled/ with champagne flutes half full/ and laughter muffled in the duvet/ that this hotel isn’t haunted/
just vacant