The Ghost
by Theodora Goss

At night, when the others are all
asleep in their beds,
dreaming the incoherent
dreams of the night,
I sit in this room, alone
by the light of the lamp,
and I write.

Are my dreams as incoherent
as theirs, though I sit
awake? Sometimes I think so,
and feel so alone.
There is nothing like the night
to do that — the night
and the moon.

And then sometimes it winks
through the window, I think,
and suddenly I feel
comforted and at ease,
as though the chairs were my friends,
and the windows, and even
the trees.

And I think — philosophical, since
it is night, and the others
are all where they ought to be,
asleep in their beds —
that being a writer is rather
like being a ghost,
which needs

only the night and the lonely
light of the lamp,
and the friendly chairs — in short,
to haunt a room
where incomprehensible dreams
can cohere and
take form.

(The image is The Library by Elizabeth Shippen Green.)