There's an apparition in the doghouse.
It's bleeding money and throwing wind.
It's the theory of a sturgeon.
A nuisance-caller. A handful of hands.

There's a ghoul on the verandah.
It's nine days older than God
and has the world's blood on one lapel.
In its voice is the sound of masts creaking.
Every other word is a hole being filled in.
Each breath a tiny cataclysm.

Father, the dead are returning
to the city in the ground.
They drift to earth like autumn leaves.
They are rain. They're sighing heavily.
In league with the starshine.
Asleep with the ferns.

One ghost divides into millions of lines.
One ghost weeps pencil-lead and irony.
The lot of them are light-starved.
They laugh bitterly. Their smoke is acrid.

And father, you're dead too.
You've been tinkering under the hood
for half of an eternity.
None of your letters are being written.
The telephone weighs as much as a stone.

You're part of the bones' circus.