A red-headed ghost–
or maybe it was a photo strip memory made up in black
eyeliner, a walking afterimage in a crop top–
floated past me as I waited
for my latte at the coffeehouse today.
She must have been within three inches of my face,
close enough for her to hear me whisper
her name.  

Do memories have ears?  Do ghosts heed our calls?

I wonder, if I had reached out
to touch her arm, would my hand have connected 
with solid skin or stoic air?  If ghosts have skin,
I’m sure hers would have been cool, slick
as an eel’s as she slithered
past me.

I stayed silent, statuesque, afraid
she would see me, and this would become real.  
Still,  I searched
for her face, but she wasn’t there. She had disappeared
again, as ghosts do, temporal,
unmoored, untethered from me.

Perhaps it’s for the best that she didn’t see me,
that we didn’t exchange stale pleasantries and suffer telling silences.
As long as we don’t speak, I can still pretend 
we’re friends, that one day we’ll reconnect,
and she’ll be more than the ghost
of someone I used to know.