Three Female Ghosts of Thailand
‘Krasue’
(A woman’s head with viscera hanging down from her neck.
She paralyzes like ice-cold lightning).
Where will you be tonight when the moon is shut?
Woman hater, where will you be
when the womb of your soul is shut tight?
Krasue will chant these lines over your stunned body,
her incubus birthed in you.
She will keep you pregnant until
your male belly bursts.
Then she will come out of you,
and the moon will open and shine again,
but not for you.
~~~~~~~~
‘Mae Nak’
(She's a female ghost who died at childbirth
and can extend her arms).
Mae Nak loves you.
She wants to carry you in her limbs
to the birthing couch. There she will
stretch her arms to the dawn.
Mae Nak loves you,
but you are a ghost to her,
she sees only an endless umbilical cord.
She believes you dangle at the end of it.
She believes that one morning
she will hear you mewing like a kitten
at her door.
Until then she lengthens her arms
like a sea anemone at a watery reflection
of the morning star.
~~~~~~~~
Nang Mai
(Lady of the Woods’, ghost-fairy related to trees).
Texture and grain are her domain,
but she will appear
if you are near her spider woven eyes.
She harms none,
but she can break the ties
to your own self,
make you see the mask
you’re wearing,
then she will send you home
weeping
until you break a thousand mirrors.
~~~~~~~~~
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2019
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