Ghost Plays

The living me becomes
the dying me becoming
the ghost of me still
alive but not knowing,
standing back behind myself
worried for the other, silent.
My coughing calls him.
Sometimes I put on his mask
play as if to want
his ghostly life,
cut off days away from consciousness
a few lines away from that inspired poem
that cures and tells the secrets
all ghosts linger still to try to tell.
I have been curious about him.
It's killing me to find-out.
I hide in the caves.
I lie on flat boulders and try
to dream his dreams in the sun
to breathe his smoke
to wear his clothes.

He plays in the mountain haze
He can.
He walks from the woods to watch.
His path at night crosses before mine.
As fast as I drive
he's just ahead of the headlights.
Again I feel I know him now.
I, the dying man,
passing this same field
yesterday tried to pretend
it had been his,
and so back fifty ghosts before mine
petitioning us to walk their paths
to stand again
in these doorways
helpless to change a thing.