Snow Ghost by Stephen Mead

Snow Ghost

Spirit is the more accurate word, not poltergeist antics

or hints of chill despite the frigidity which first formed.

Yes, it is lucky how you burn more like dry ice,

a cozy hyperthermia through your crackling fireplace mirage.

Give me fever, are the lines hummed in my ear

as we waltz like particles in a shook holiday globe.

All the world is curving walls of small bubbles

to mirror how you press against, ascend on every side.

Your breath, mist-transparent, is downy dew on the lips.

Listen, let your mouth move so this spell's hypnotism is less,

your voice in my head - the same poem returning,

writing itself with amnesiac syllables used before

in slightly different rhythm as if wonder could be commonplace.

You say it is just the desk book register for itinerant guests

in a haunted hotel.  Turn the pages.  You say I am the night clerk

always welcoming in those looking to belong somewhere

beyond ballrooms of homelessness & their tattered

New Year's Eve streamers.

So are we all orphans then together in solitude?

You forget we began with that question - you croon -

holding me closely to still spin me dizzy

& dip, dip far.