I love this poem, by Nicky Beer. Poetry is sustaining me right now.
Even the ghosts
Even the ghosts of police need
something to do. They take careful
inventories of the insects trespassing
our ears as we sleep. They surveil
the silent, splayed footprints of raccoons.
They are threatened by the rain, its sheer
numbers. A soul is trapped in a plastic bag
and must be duly interrogated. There
are too many windows in this city, say
the ghosts of police. Too many
tire tracks trapped in high branches,
too many red lights cut open.
The ghosts of police cannot play
music, cannot remember the feeling
of their own hands brushing against
their necks. They leap out of our faucets
and command us to stop. They pull
their hands out of their empty pockets
over and over.
And the moon turns away
from us all, shows us the cold target of its back.
Nicky Beer is the author of The Octopus Game (2015) and The Diminishing House (2010), both winners of the Colorado Book Award for Poetry.