A Ghost Is The Ultimate Girl You Can't Have
By Kristin Garth
Inverted crucifix stripper wonders why
some gentlemen approach her bottoms up breasts
where gravity’s defied, deny
an aerialist dollars. All obsessed
looks, deranged eyes, offering cash to one beside,
translucent, unidentified. She feels
its electricity whenever it glides
proximate to her glittered skin. Must be real,
she decides, fallen dancer, perchance
even a possible friend. A dozen have died
in the twenty-two years since she first pranced
nude her first time — murder, two suicides,
a few car wrecks, childbirth, drug overdose.
Fresh flesh everywhere, men covet the ghost.
Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer, and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna, and more. She is the author of 21 books of poetry including Crow Carriage (Sweet Tooth Story Books) and The Stakes (Really Serious Literature) and the editor of seven anthologies. She is the founder of Pink Plastic House a tiny journal and co-founder of Performance Anxiety, an online poetry reading series. Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie) and her website kristingarth.com