THE SWINGING PINK BOXES FROM EBINGER’S

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Despite their official status
Ghosts do not retire
Or sign up for Medicare
They are alive and well 

The bigger than life ones 
Live with vivacity in the 
transmission of streams
On the twirling carousel of turntables
In the cemeteries of novels
And in the silver screen infinity of movies 
Where at this very moment Jean Harlow is
Slinking like a panther in
A dangerous negligee
And Jimmy
Stewart is stammering his
Way into the heart
Of a woman who has
Pulverized his bashful vocabulary.

The city ones
still drive trolly cars
And horse-drawn lunch wagons
And dunk doughnuts in Chock Full of Nuts
And sell the Herald Tribune for a nickel on 
Street corners
And sip in speakeasies 
And row barefoot in Central Park 
With parasols and straw hats
While legendary performances
Are still being given
beneath the ornate chandeliers of
Theater palaces.

The ones who are closest to me,
The once upon a time animated relatives
Who used to sashay from the cars
On a Saturday night
Swinging pink cake boxes from Ebinger’s 
Like Church incense
Who were picked off one by one
By unfiltered cigarettes
And the strangulation of regret
The friends
who shared
Summer warm beach blankets
And secrets
While we traced the skeletons of shells
And listened to the heart murmur of the ocean
And the girls
Who became women 
In the velvet soft darkness of 
suburban bedrooms
Which we owned 
Like grown ups
Until parents
Suddenly appeared
Like the enemy in
driveways
Are still all here.
Forever.

As for the other ghosts
The ones who populate the civilization of my
Nightmares
And live to remind me how
Undeserving I am
Well, we’re in couples therapy now
Trying to work it out
Even though we both know
And probably don’t want to admit
That it’s over
And we’re just holding on.

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