Job Description

I make a lot of money
as a dead person.

You living
jump out of your skins to pay me

when my ill wind blows
in your faces. 

You ask me where I spend it
and how I came by this job?

I answer by touching you
on the back of your neck.

Then I move one finger down 
to the base of your tailbone. Feel that?

You shiver, I get paid.
Each tremble is a buck I can trade

for coins taken from corpse eyes.
Those are useful here. I’d explain

the economy of the afterworld,
but it would take too long.

Enough to say food and shelter and insurance
aren’t necessary. More on that later — 

to answer the second question,
if you must know

I took the job in a moment of
gun-facilitated despair some years ago.

I think you call me a ghost,
but I’m not that different from you.

I walk through things you have to walk around,
that’s all. It’s not bad work.

I do get so bored with you,
but you never

get bored with me. Not too shabby,
that power to remain electrifying

to the dull living. That’s where
most of my income goes: paying for

the opportunity to remain memorable.
Not everyone gets such a chance.

It almost makes that last flash of pain
worth it.