Here is a little sneak peek of my new poetry chapbook 16 Flavours of Ghost.
***
The Ghost with a Thousand Suits
Workdays: Dark grey suit, wool tie
Weekends: Cords, jumpers, jeans
After I died, I decided to get a piercing.
Set my heart on a big, Roman nose with a ring
through the right nostril.
Slipped into that youngster and wriggled
his fingers. His skin was like soft leather gloves.
Maybe it should’ve felt wrong
to push my face into the mask of his skull
and peep out, but I did it anyway.
My new nose caught the light.
I went to bars I’d always avoided
and moved through the crowd,
body to body, borrowing
tattoos of tigers
hair in great spikes and waves
black nail polish
breasts.
Each outfit had something new –
an unfamiliar ache, itch, gravity.
A way of being looked at.
A way of growing, shrinking, swelling, tensing
under different pairs of eyes.
Now and then, I take a moment
to dance badly in booze-laced flesh.
I am sweat-drenched, ecstatic.
I have never been or seen so much beautiful.
***
I hope you enjoyed that. Many of my ghosties are pretty much the same person in death that they were in life, but I also liked the idea of someone being liberated to try things they’d always feared – in this case, experimenting with appearance and perhaps exploring gender identity.
If you would like to read more about the post-death shenanigans of my sixteen spooks, I am selling chapbooks to anyone with a UK address for £8 (postage included). You can message me on Twitter @corastillwrites if you’re interested.
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