I was visited by five ghosts. No — it was one man.

On my twenty fifth year, I was far from home.

And the soul gasped — raw as liver, ravished and

unclothed. Fear can possess a heart, poisonously

as supernatural fruit. Will you hear me? First, he

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watched me shower after the animals had gone

to sleep, the dark of an eye upon me. Was he a she,

like the soul, curious as I once was of the body

that would become my own? Second, he watched

me bathe and gave himself a beating, then hid

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in the mountains until admitting what he did. Said

he was sorry. But he was not sorry. His hand —

slick on my hand. Third, he watched me change for

dinner from the head of a three-headed boy —

peeping under the tapestries. The smallest head was

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blamed. He could not look at me. Forth, a voice

whispered my name, stalked me from the brush after

the sun went down — a boy my age high in the

weeds. By then, it was autumn and I finally bled —

women gowned around me with flowers and

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flame as we talked about the pussy in the thistling

pastures. My wound unhaunted where I was

bitten. Fifth, the hanged man came onto me, his

shadow in the corner of my room. I have seen the

worst of man. From the tree, he cut his body down.