my humorous ghost precisely will

my humorous ghost precisely will
stray from the others on the hill
if only to hear someone say
exactly what someone has said.

Straying as softly as a puma,
it will come to Boston
and sit in the Howard Atheneum
up under the non si fuma,

(up in the ceiling with the old men.
With the wrinkles and eyes and tumours.)
Precisely straying like a leopard
or a music,will my ghost

visit queerly the naked girls who
wiggle at the end of second avenue
in the Burlesque As You
Like it,or gliding most

softly into Hassan’s will see
them all dancing together,a turk
and one girl and three greeks
with the cousin of the old Man In The Moon playing

the kanoon. (After that,
precisely i will float into Moskowitz’s
where there’s himself at the zimbalon,and
Raisin tight with Jack Shargel at a table in the

spidery music,ordering Bosca
singing oona vaap and gesturing like a Petrouska.
And i’ll gesture as well as i am able in the
transparent condition which ghosts

are afflicted with,
my gestures will be in the past tense
and bright and small and ridiculous.)
And after all ll go to a certain

house where the window is open
i-will go in between the curtains
silently, like a cat or atune. I will find
softly and precisely a particular room where

you are perfectly asleep in your hair,
and you will kiss my ghost thinking
that it’s a dream,until i leap from you
suddenly out into the morning