Early Retirement for The Ghosts

the ghosts stay away when you’re with me

because they are loving; because they are seeing

everything like how you hold me in the night

while watching me in my dreams and

overseeing my exposed back while I make coffee

in the morning, still vulnerable to the day ahead.

they stand over me after midnight when

I sleep alone and peer around corners

in long shadows of the afternoon

to make sure I peer up from the blue light

into the golden light and…

because the ghosts see everything; because they are loving

they are seeing you loving me in all the ways

they have learned I’ve needed so they rest

their labours, return to wherever it is they reside

where they explore in their time off, know they have found

an adequate recruit in this life and the next

or the other or the right beside us one because…

despite what we have been told in fairy tales, horror stories

what we believe is what we give power to - not what we fear.

your belief in the heart, it’s truths and it’s devotions

giving early retirement to the ghosts that haunt me

so gently.

I love your working overtime, making it look easy,

making it look like pleasure.