When the dead emerge to sun themselves
In your shade, you overhear their well-rehearsed
Complaints about the living. I died a while ago, and yet
I live – a spare ghost. It is not the dying I regret,
It is the lingering that crumbles my baked-clay
Soul. There must be a point to disengagement
Of body and soul, each to its primeval husk.
You; both man, both spider, have lived a long
Time, and know every crack and crevice between
Dead and living. I do not need a sorcerer to exorcise
My recesses; nor a physician, for I have stepped
Beyond potions and their healing claims. Only, tell me.
What does the dead me say, about the living me?
–L.S. Mensah
