Letters to Guns

Shroud

49 Shroud Ambrose Bierce said all reports of ghosts wearing shrouds were unreliable. Whatever powers of apparition might bless the flesh could hardly be expected of cotton, silk, or wool, otherwise we ought to see old clothes appearing on their own from time to time. I once called the home of a dead man to offer sympathy to his wife. A machine with the man’s voice answered & told me to leave a message, he’d try to call back. somehow I could tell he was wearing a robe over bed clothes. I could hear his thick socks, the Kleenex in one pocket, a pillbox. The first shrouds were blankets, then ropes on boats. now they’re the skins of spaceships, allowing them to leave the earth & return cool as night birds. The cries of whippoorwills sound like mourning. At sunset, they fly over the bay, an arrow of empty shirts. ...