POEM

Little Betsy

A ghost is no good to a child.

Maybe he crooks a finger, as if to beckon

the girl to play. Maybe he bounds spritely

down corridors, into kitchens.

But if she hands him a dolly or ball

and he reaches with his spectral hand,

he cannot clutch the gift, and if his failed grasp

surprises him, if the lack of resistance —

for everything real resists the touch —

unbalances him, his incorporeal fingers

might graze the child’s offering hand.

What would you call the gooseflesh

raised by the frolicsome dead?

There is no joy in it, only a deep well

of longing cold, the kind that claws

through every crack in the wall.

— Ross White