lives

i like the night time

when the whole road is made

out to be gold by the only streetlight

on the block and where outside

on the sidewalk it's only

the smokers and bicycle thieves

and ghosts of the old town 

grinding up dead leaves under

their boots and making up tunes

in their heads about becoming a sailor

or about spending their whole lives

trying to learn death

or about the woman who would

visit in dreams wearing

her screaming skin 

like a wedding dress the whiteness 

always turning to chalk in their hands

or the familiar trails at night of bent 

wet blades of grass and the steel dime

shuddering through dark secret trees

moon on the lake and heart stopped

glimpse of young cougar's eyes catching

obscure owls calling and

every ghost 

has a woods to trespass

and a feeling or a flutter in the dark

that is enough to send them 

in the right direction home

and on the street the ghosts

here are all singing

the callous on the hand

where the fir's bark cut decades

the lamp post has expired in

a right gesture of love

inside it is warm

and i can only hear breathing