Diagnostic Quiz for Human Ghost

Over the past two weeks, please list the items you have lost.

At the present moment, do you know the location & number of your teeth?

(in grams) Please estimate the weight of each of the following: Left lung, half-liver, three fingers on your right hand.

(in miles) Please estimate the distance from the back of your skull to the skin of your eye.

Over the past two weeks, please estimate the number of times you’ve attempted to start a conversation and failed (including, but not limited to: grocery stores, living rooms, when you are alone.)

(in incandescence) How much light passes through you? Is it enough to write a letter?

Pick a letter. Pick a new name.

Can you hear the woman singing?

What was your death’s taxonomy? Where is its kingdom & domain?

How important do you feel to others?

Are you sitting atop the creaking hinges of something only you can see?

Are you certain there is no part of your body that is missing.

Are you certain there is nothing missing at all.

Copyright © 2024 by James Fujinami Moore. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 16, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“I wrote this poem while working with the extraordinary New York City-based Office Hours Poetry Workshop. At the time, I was having difficulty writing; and when I’m blocked, I often turn to form. Sometimes that’s sonnets or sestinas, but it can also be jokes, memes, job applications. Sometimes the strangest corners make curious shapes. This is one of them.”
—James Fujinami Moore