A Ghost Is The Ultimate Girl You Can't Have

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