joe dunthorne

[a previous draft of this poem was published in Poetry Wales]

content note: death; ghosts

The dead ate their ghost steaks at the trestle,

elbows threshing, serrated ghost knives asqueal

on the china. Boy were they hungry. Their bowels

whimpered like chimneys in the wind. And once 

the ghost meat was at peace inside them they stood

in turn to read their ghost poems, voices dwelling

in the sadder octaves only ghost throats reach.

The force of their applause wafted the bit of paper

with the wifi password clean off the coffee table.

Which is how I realised they were in the apartment.

When I asked them to show themselves they slid

their many ghost fingers deep inside my ears

and nose, took control of my hot sloshy body,

made me write this poem. Even now they refuse

to go, staring out from my eye slots as though

at third-floor windows in a house fire.

was born and grew up in Swansea. He is the author of three novels, most recently The Adulterants. His first book of poems, O Positive, was published last year by Faber and Faber.