There’s a legend
of a ghost that lived
in a pill bottle
found by a young child
under the leaves
at the edge of his driveway.

The name on the bottle
had leaked off in the rain
long ago, the pills
had crusted and fused
inside, a thick crumb cover
of white holding them in place;
the boy stuck a pencil in
and pried them loose,
shook them out onto the ground.
All he wanted was the bottle
to hold something else he’d found.

The ghost of the bottle
slipped into the air, moved
out into the world, barely rustling
a leaf as it rose through the thin
October trees to seek its original owner
who had died or gone missing
and left it behind. 

It would have fastened on the boy,
but it chose to wait.  At seven,
the boy could not have held the ghost;s interest
for long; he would need more age and pain
for the ghost to cling to.

But the ghost would remember
this boy, his poking at the leftover pills,
how he stripped the label off
and made the bottle his own.

Genies serve the masters who find them;
ghosts master the moments in which they’re found,
and this ghost had all the time in the world
to wait for the boy to grow into his moment.

You and your damn crows
and vultures, Time.
Always they’re out there:
in trees in threes for crows,
soaring solo or in posses
for buzzards.  It’s like
you can’t not remind me
of your inevitable
last grin down upon me,

and don’t get me started
on how scared I become
in the moment after I’ve congratulated myself
for sweeping a worm off the front walk,
or each time I chase down and slay a fly.

That sinking feeling of knowing
it’s all a holding action.
That moment of wondering
when you, Time, will throw me
to your pets.

I’m sick of you and your insistence.
Friends say it’s just coincidence,
that there’s no definite presage of death
in these things…
but I know what they all eat.
I know their hunger.  I know
I’m fat, soft,
and an easy pick with this head of mine
that won’t shut up about making it easier
for them…

ah, Time, I get it now:
it’s just your way to tease me
with the death-eaters
in the midst of my living.
It’s what you are best at:
using the little things,
the obvious things,
to reveal yourself as an arrow
pointing inexorably
one way.