Many Happy Returns, Darling

Nobody is going to stop me
from feeding brownies to ghosts.
The fire is the only way
I can talk to you now 
and you always loved losing yourself

in chocolate—you’d close 
your eyes and moan.
I see signs in every pop
and shift of the fire. 
My therapist told me

you can talk to the dearly departed,
but they can’t talk back.
She doesn’t know how you flash
briefly green when I feed you words, 
one dictionary page at a time—

you haven’t chucked a word back
to me yet, but there are reams
of paper left for us to discover
the trick, and in the meantime
it was just another hefty tome

falling to pieces and they keep
telling me to lighten up, make space,
and I can’t believe you aren’t 
haunting me with no thought left
unexpressed. At least you must

have some sense of gratitude
for these crisped offerings—
you who always said exactly
what you meant— while I
just burn the words.