The close sun of Los Angeles
is hard on ghosts
you won’t find them as you might
lurking deep in redwood forests
or soaring on the wind
in the high sky of Mojave
In the light we tell our stories
cheerfully with bits of lunch
at noisy restaurant tables
standing in chance market meetings
or bravely in fluorescent
story-telling classes
The ghosts prefer to hide and wait for dark
to float down moon-lit river channels
tiptoe among the black palm tree silhouettes
echo back the words they hear
in corners of dim living rooms
collect the things that we have hidden deep
and then explode us from our deepest sleep
© 2015 Frank Kearns
