Evening, with Taxi and Ghosts

(after Jericho Brown)

The same ghosts file past your bed.
Say the mouth of the furnace opens.

            Say the mouth of the furnace yawns
            wider than the jaws of death.

All my dead have jaws wider than in life. They've
made up for whatever appetite they lacked in life.

            Making up for their hungers in life,
            they eat every morsel on the offering plate.

Offer them morsels from your hand or the plate.
Then call for a cab to pick them up at the gate. 

           The yellow cab waits, idling at the gate.
           Birds on the sill rouge their own breasts.

Some birds are known to rouge their own breasts.
Evenings, the same ghosts file past your bed.