Today’s prayer is my body pressed
against your body. Emily Dickinson
on the nightstand, still talking to Susan.
Occasionally, I’m the ghost who places
coldness into the left ventricle
of your heart, but I’m also your positive
prognosis even as doctors smoke
cigarettes and scientists say,
They should have sent a poet.
‍And when I sonnet my body
onto your page and you try to leave
me, I emdash you—see
the beauty in that fine thin line
—a bridge grows between us.
Hold me as the ghost I am—it’s impossible
not to love you—in soft focus, knowing
I’ll be there like that foggy night you
stumbled on the sidewalk, understanding
there is always one streetlight on your way
home that will continue to shine.

Note: Title is from a line from a letter Emily Dickinson wrote to Susan Gilbert. They should have sent a poet is a line from the 1997 movie Contact.