Your Seaport Home

            for Marianne

There’re ghosts where you live in the middle of town;

While tucked in my bed, one came in through the door.

She was wan and diaphanous, sad and profound,

with sheets in her hands that she dragged on the floor.

I thought I might scream if she spewed out some fire,

but she lifted her hands and she looked up above.

Her eyes were beseeching, her face filled with desire,

I trembled and wondered if she’d lost some young love.

Was she looking for him in the halls of your home,

where shuttles once flew and looms made a rattle

and dust flew in clouds, the threads caught in combs,

and lint floated down to the streets where the cattle

lumbered along on the way to the harbor,

the cotton-fluff snow now cov’ring their flanks?

And back in your rooms, there are sounds from the larders

where girls pound the dough on smooth wooden planks,

They look at the ghost and pause for a heartbeat

and think of young passions that fill them with hope

of a life with a husband and a home down on High Street

and laundry in kettles all bubbling with soap.

From under the covers, awake in your condo,

I watch the young ghost turn back to the wall,

And passing through bricks, she slides by the window

And drifts through the doorway and floats down the hall.

The millworks are quiet; the workers have gone;

the ghosts have returned to their lonely churchyards.

Fog floats in the harbor; the sun has withdrawn,

the water is still, and the barmaids are tired.

Her lover has sailed on the tide with no wind;

the ship’s gone, and I have returned to my bed

with no scent of tar or singing of hymns,

but odors of curry and Thai food instead.