When Best He Sings

Every ghost story is a love story,
A beauty contest judged by butterflies.
If you can read these phrases, even if
You have someone read them to you, and know

That they mean, or possibly mean, something,
You are already a ghost, and I am
Already your ghost lover, with others.
Every ghost knows ghosts have no boundaries.

Who counts how many lovers we've had, lies.
Who counts how many lovers we've been, lies.
Who counts, lies. Who is a ghost, lies. Lies are
Ghosts as well. Nothing but a ghost can lie.

The butterfly liars float, translucent
And, attracted to that spectral nectar,
Cover what they love most, chaotic clouds
That judge our loveliness by telling us,

For brief intervals, where we more or less
Are in our unbounded state, ghost pollen
Settling, accumulating, dispersing.
What no one of us was altogether

Transcends us, and the butterflies follow.
If you've seen green pine pollen outlining
Shapes it's drifted against a little while
Then vanishing, you know, are, what this means