This Ghosty Mansion

but what a relief it it is
to realize that other people inhabit
this ghosty mansion of a body

that's just fred
who locked himself in the attic
over that girl and still howls from time to time

and that's emily who
turns down dinner invitations
with such precision

gordon who gazes with
surprising and unremitting greed
at vapid spotty girls chewing gum

and phillip augustus
who rarely descends from his second floor room
book in hand trying

to understand
that business in the netherlands
and russell

who is a county extension agent
in Illinois and sells patent seed corn
on the side

you never know who
will pad downstairs to the door
and peer out of my eyes

when someone knocks and
the sighing and the rattling of chains
might be anyone