Couple parked at the corner, 
lights off, big gestures;
arguing perhaps, speaking of
love perhaps, or perhaps of money, 
talking loudly of how one
may stall the other, how love 
conquers money, how money 
straps down love.

A newer model car,
which means nothing. A younger
looking couple, as far can be told
in this light, in this darkness — which
means nothing.

Perhaps instead
they are older 
and reliving their shared past,
or their unshared pasts.  Maybe one’s 
had the love, one’s had the money
till now and they’re looking toward 
whatever comes next
and not between them.

Perhaps, 
perhaps,
perhaps — old song
in someone’s head. Old wounds
singing to new ones. The world
surging on beyond whatever
they are gesturing toward.

The streetlight 
sputters, then goes out. 

1.
A ghost walking, hands clasping daggers on a rain-dimmed afternoon.
Too much on my mind; too little mind with which to hold it up.
I’m not a man anymore as much as I am something glimpsed and incorrectly identified.
A blur in the foreground of an old photograph. The viewers ask, in near-perfect unison:
Who is that rushing by, now almost out of frame?

2.
A ghost walking, carrying captured rainwater in two buckets: galvanized metal squeaking as they swing and slop over.
A vinyl album playing on a modern turntable in a second floor room, music in the wet air.
I don’t know this song but that is unquestionably Coleman Hawkins’ tone singing against the rest of the world’s noise.
A wide chorus hovering over the sidewalk five feet up, at near ear-level. Listeners in the vicinity ask:
is there a break in time that makes this so, and who is that ghost, whose water does it carry?

3.
A ghost who glides or floats cannot be described as a walking ghost according to strictest traditional guidelines.
If there is a ghost carrying water, holding knives, or simply floating empty, that’s something to be understood differently.
You ask: what am I not seeing, what am I seeing and not understanding, what am I missing about you?
I say only that I truly don’t know. If I am a ghost, I’m not a restless, disembodied entity as much as something transparent
I cannot fully explain. You see through me, past the love I encompass, past the life I could offer to you.

if it all fell to earth before you
like first snow or warm rain

was laid out before you
so you could choose
that which would satisfy you most

could you
open your hands enough
to take it
fold your arms enough
to hold it

if there was one song you could hear
without weeping or turning away

one melody subtle harmony
perfect for humming along
or remembering fondly

could you
open your ears
and hear it
could you 
set your face 
to smile past your tears

all we have 
are possibilities
if we shun them
we have nothing

all we are
is what comes to us
if we flee it
we are lost

When among others
I work to appear 
to be one of them.
I use words others use,

talk like them, write
like them. Do the subtle
bodyspeak, the gestures,
the moves.

When among others
I sing their song cycles
within earshot;
poem their poetry too.

When fucking though?
My own language, my own 
tongue — and no, not when
making love or even having

sex — those are their words,
not mine; no ruined sensibility
of theirs for me. I speak my singular 
rumbletone hard stop when

in the swing of fucking, speak it
with the Other I’m with, coding and
decoding in the moment
of utterance. Tense agreement,

plural touch. Grammar
of switch upon switch
across skins. Private syntax.
All the cipher we can handle.

What I can offer of myself
for you to hold onto here:

a worn shoe,
a loose tongue. Mileage
and incessant talk about 
mileage. I show
every step, every stumble,
and I won’t shut up.

One broken shoe,
clearly a discard.
Not worth picking up
from the pavement,
really; stories
spilling out from that floppy
tongue, out of holes
and near holes.

By their nature shoes
are not about hope
once they’re broken in,
instead are about trudging
and when there’s only one
they’re barely noticed unless
one trips over them and then?
Gone, trashed, tossed —

one worn shoe of a man.
Dust in the folds. Dim shine,
politely called patina.
The sole a tattered page.
I’ve been places, though,

and could go farther
even though there’s no reason I should,
even though it looks impossible
that I could go anywhere ever again — still,

how soft I’ve become.
How uniquely gentle I could be
to your touch.