They’re inside a spine of storefront silhouettes
standing, shoulder-to-shoulder
inside an empty main street.
Their shadows hopscotching abandoned alleys
pulling balloons and bowing
to fountains with sightless splashes.

Maybe the corner house, a bent neck
and fractured forehead floating in
the bay window, close to midnight, with streetlight haze
whistling on the pane. It haunts the night
like piano keys, giggling a minor chord
without an instrument nearby.

Even a frigate of ancient metal and barnacle crust
bobbing in solitude along the gruff seawater.
A foghorn shoulder amongst the shoreline rocks
waiting for the phantom lighthouse to wink
in spinning slices of blood light
summoning the ship back to its underworld dock.

Or finally that mountaintop inn with cobweb corners,
which sits dark and skull socket empty unless
a patron arrives. Then, every paper lantern lights
like a cluster of square stars finally making
their eternity dash across the sky.
They distract the visitors from the severed hands.

The dead, departed, haunted, and ghoulish,
are eternally tireless.
For it is devilishly laborious
to fight and steal focus
from the onslaught

of the living.

Featured Image Credit: Stefano Pollio