His Ghosts
1.
The boy sprints all around in Bethel, Delaware,
wonders a thousand times a day where his brothers are,
blinks the thought away.
He wishes he felt the soft-tilled soil fluff around his feet,
still enjoys his footsteps making dust dust up
as he runs fields. He plans to steal himself some strawberries
soon as he can smell the sugar-waft when sun’s warmed the day.
He wonders if his mother’s found the lump of turnip greens
he slipped into his pocket and forgot to dump last night,
and whether she’ll tell his Dad, who’ll switch him good.
He thinks about the airplane he drew yesterday,
thinks he’d fly the whole way to Alaska,
and take his brothers for the ride, but first
pretend to take off all alone and leave them standing
eyes wide, mouths open in surprise, then
come back, maybe let them board
third time he taxied back around. They’d see
Eskimos and penguins, and eat blubber or big crabs.
He sprints home, hopes at least his baby sister’s there
so he can tickle her, make her laugh until she’s blue.
Or his big sister, and he can sneak up on her while she
hangs sheets out on the line, make her scream
He wonders if his brothers maybe found the cookies he hid
And hid themselves somewhere to eat them all.
Then he’s whistling to himself, but wants somebody
to come out and listen to his day.
Some mornings he runs out on the field,
puts his shoulder to the blocking sleds,
picks up the ball and palms it back and forth, practices
throwing it between the goalpost arms,
runs over all the plays he’s ever seen or learned,
walks over every line the groundsman’s chalked,
sits on the bench and waits to throw himself into another player’s solid body.
Some mornings he steps silently as if he were a ghost
through brush and branch, alert for deer, bear, bobcat, all of whom
will only know he’s there when he’s brought up the gun
and thought where they’ll move the fractured second after
he sends the bullet after them.
He thinks about metal-warm air, the breathing
steam he’ll loosen from the carcass with his steady knife,
how the air for miles around will speak his name, his skill.
2.
Both cats he hand-fed crabcakes see him now
and rub against the air his legs disturb.
He’s gaunt and looking for the morphine, starved for the drift
He paws through closets wondering why
they’ve hid it, why his wife
has changed the bedroom without asking him
and where his friends have gone instead of here, with him,
with favorite foods and stories
and why the cats are never hungry, won’t sleep on him
and will not keep him warm.