PHOTOGEIST

Eugene Atget, a chronicler of lost Paris,
Photographed a secondhand store
A day or two after the owner's cat had died.
In the print the cat's ghost can be seen,
A semi-transparent black shadow,
Standing patiently near a battered table
Where unhappy books lie in heaps.
The cat believes the owner's ghost
Will appear someday in the picture
Coming out of the doorway, perhaps,
Or rising from the mismatched pair of  boots,
Carrying in his torn jacket’s pocket

The memory of a fish head.