R. M. Walters
Ghosts in bottles, Ghosts in cartons - tissue and liquids and
vapors -- real stuff! Enough treasure to be measured
by electronic wrenches. Tiny things taking half baths
in chemical pools, making fools of hidden mitosis. Bones
and crude --skeleton Ghosts -- make the most noise in
centrifuges. But, still, Ghosts to be converted to paper.
Across from me, Alice shakes pee. She has been doing it
all morning. She is neither discontent or excited.
Her foamy Ghosts are normal.
A formal, young lady goes to bat with a glass pipette --
drops it. It is a demeaning noise, a Ghost without poise.
But her tests are accurate.
No doubt someone has expired. George will be hard to get along
with today. He just came back from autopsy. He is always
that way. He is discontent! Poor George! His Ghosts are
always failures.
I spill blood on my trousers. They're not white now, but
I'll wear them for a while ... wear a stranger Ghost --
Some-body's relative? Whose vital material have I become
kin to? A baby? A mother? A father? A brother? Yours?
Mine? I'm inclined to think so. You part gone, test tube
Ghost with an impersonal number.
Dear Ghost so alone, banished to this ultra-sonic zone
to haunt the microscope, You, I say you and mean it,
You must be kind to us. Oh, well, to put it bluntly,
It hurts like hell to send someone to heaven.
One time or seven -- tissue, liquid, or vapor --
Ghosts take your place on paper.
TW
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