though I prefer my ghosts
to inhabit the dark

if they come by day
I’ll leave all the doors open

I watch them mouthing secrets
smiling as if there were two heavens

I recall simple equations in the heart’s circumference
each sum exquisitely fixed in my memory

women in sweet and sudden rages
for fear the future comes when they're not looking

children claustrophobic in their skins
fanning out like fish bones

younglings piercing love’s delicate membrane
to taste the fleshy center

friends in the gray solfeggio of autumn
and the ritual smile

in their company the hours pass
until a spill of sun a sweep of shade