Ghost Girls of Thailand
Thai's - out of respect,
may not look directly at you
until they are sure you are riddled
with the dead.
There are village ghosts and mountain ghosts,
river ghosts and jungle ghosts,
some ghost haunt each other
and form clouds in the eyes of children.
The ghosts of Thailand
tend to linger in this world for a while;
for the roads to other realms are jammed
with ox-carts, trishaws toot-toots,
and gaily painted trucks.
Here is a strange thing:
the female ghosts will attach
to good men and their dreams;
they make them love dead flowers,
blooms that shine again in the afterlife.
Each specter has one of those
in her long black hair, but the flowers
are all bright and bone-white.
If you are a bad man,
there are other female ghosts,
with even longer hair,
they are remorseless; they will bind you
to a fiery night-horse evermore.
Males, even foreigners,
are natural hosts for female ghosts.
Men may go home to their wives;
perhaps to a far land,
but a she-ghost will sleep between them -
this is normal.
men who have no female ghost to sleep with
are not worthy,
according to Thai folklore.
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