DESIGN

When I submitted the latest design
For my ghost I included a note
That many things were negotiable
I am willing to be real or imaginary
Or some combination of the two.
Palpable? Impalpable? No great matter.
I am willing to wear full armor
And walk battlements armed cap a pie.
On the other hand, I can manage
As a trick of light or a pale shadow.
There is just one thing: I must have pockets
Or where will I put stones and bits of metal?
Where, when I visit my parents' grave,
Will my left hand go while my right
Swoops and points, unfolds and clenches?

AGAIN

At the end of a day, a year, of time itself
God turns out His pockets, wondering
At the stray shells and stones and bits of metal
That have collected there. He does not want
To find shreds of things when He does the laundry
Nor to hear the terrible noise keys make in a dryer
So He checks carefully, and finds in a fob pocket
A blue and green marble, chipped, dusty,
But still rather pretty. He gently rolls it in His fingers;
Feels its satisfying weight in His palm. In a desk drawer
He finds an old star, salvage from a constellation
Which didn't work out, and sets the marble spinning
One more time.

LOSING GRAVITY

My ancestor from Karlin
Wasn't mad so it must be
He was brave, not caring
When gravity, in one of her moods,
Released her claim on him
So, in the middle of prayer,
He started towards the ceiling.
Witnesses report he continued
Without losing a syllable.
Services over, the congregation
Watched him treading air
Until he washed against a pillar
And climbed down to join them.
The chazan handed him rocks
(Rocks? What were rocks doing
In a synagogue? Praying, I guess
Or perhaps dozing. Hard to tell.)
Which he put in his coat's pockets
So he could make it back home
Even if a vagrant wind thought
Wouldn't it be rare fun
To blow Reb Aaron to China?

SINCE AESRED ASKED

My father never threw a key away

Long after the locks were gone

The keys remained, safe in drawers,

Deep in pockets of old clothes, in jam jars

Mixed in with miscellaneous nails

And screws and bolts and bits of wire.

FROM MAX'S POSTHUMOUS JOURNAL

            After I died many things troubled me, for I had been unprepared, besides being, at my best, of an uncertain temper. What bothered me most often, though, was something trivial – the fact that I had no pockets.

            As a child I had delighted to stuff my pockets full of oddments, including marbles, strange rocks, small pieces of metal, and the keys to doors long since gone to dust. Older, I spent much time with my hands in my pockets – self-contained and self-sufficient, a small, sulky universe which had set up business in defiance of the larger ones around him.

            For some reason, all the newly dead are given cats. A ghost’s cat is much like any other save that it needs no litter box and can speak. Now that I think of it, it may be that I was given to the cat, and only my egotism makes me see it as having been the other way round. In any event, the cat with whom I was associated called himself Braggi;  he was unsympathetic about my need for pockets. “They only make you lazy,” he said.

VISITORS

From out the November dark three knocks;

There has been rain; the moon is in the road

But the women in the doorway are not wet.

The young one is a sorceress; she will speak truths,

Go mad and die by water, her pockets

Crammed filled with stones.

The next will never find what she seeks

Will love well but not wisely, she will live long;

St. Peter watches her grave.

The oldest, great-hearted, died young; on this night

All three stand at your door, waiting.

Why have you not bid them enter?

NO INSTRUMENT

No instrument by which I’ve reckoned

Could tell me where the summer flies

No demon perched astride a second

Could say “Here, where my left leg lies

She loves you still, but on t’other side

You are for her as things that were

But safe among the dead reside.”

An unmarked border, no fence, no sign

“Your money is no good, your ways

Are strange to us. New stars shine

Than those you knew on other days.

Your marvellous lies none care to know.”

When did your pockets fill with dust?

But step lightly as you go

If strength won’t do then cunning must.