Apparitions

A line of cars wait in a row behind a stop light
while malfunctioning church bells play
the wrong songs and the young all blast
their music in defense.
A man in a wool jacket brushes the dust
off a stone chessboard in the park
before he sits and waits for any given game.
The train is stopped on the tracks keeping
the whole town split in two; including a couple
who hooked up two days ago and are both trying
to meet in the middle to catch up with their lifetime.
There’s a long drop from the diving board
and all it’s overused cliches, but we all know
what’s more important is the ladder.
Of everyone who’s ever pissed in that pool
the most remembered is Mr. Grayson who
was eighty and had problems with blood
cocktails in his bladder that gave way with
borrowed time that very night swim.
We make drug dealers pour tea at the senior
center for community service but cannot spot
them simple change for parking in this city
that holds every burning building like a gun.
She lies out in the daylight like she knows
there is a way to disappear.
Like there’s a cabinet somewhere made to store
the ones we can’t love anymore.
We throw people away but we keep
all their names in our phones
like a graveyard where the words stand apart
from the stones.