Vernon’s ghost is where
No shadow should be, falling
The wrong way into
The light, while heat undresses
The grass and torments the crickets.
His ghost always asks
Him for a loan or gift but
It makes no difference;
He refuses, and his ghost sinks
Back into the ill-shaped field,
With its circular
Corn rows from a giant’s thumbprint.
The sun’s rays are tired,
Vulgar, the summer desperate,
To regain its youth. And then
In quiet astonishment,
A lost opacity in
Bright light but fully
Corporeal, with its brogans
Full of secrets, his ghost is back,
Smoking dark Camels
And blowing smoke down the road
As a memento
To distance, and chatty some-
What from its coign of vantage,
Telling Vernon who
Suffers from a rare case of
Bad luck that, all truths
Being banal and short-lived,
What he needs is a good strong
Dose of practical joking.
Grey Sparrow Journal 