when orion cries

where do the ghosts go when there’s nothing left to scare
when fearless bed sheets can no longer mask mischief
or undo the undone clocks?

where do all the lonely spirits go now naked in the light
when the dead of dark came alive trapped in their eyes
and gnawed off its paw?

do they hang in bars with their emotional scars
hung like halloween candy from their long chagrins
and order another round of shots?

do they sit when they wish to float and hope to gloat
just one last time before time unwinds and it’s back in line
to catch the next flight to hades?

maybe they rise and make constellations that make me move
and twist themselves into shuddering shapes of irony
and fall like old photographs
shooting cold holes in the sky

maybe it’s want and not need
maybe the ghost is free