door  
$40 used on ebay
cleaned it up. made it good

(wore the **** out of that thing)
i found him there,

i fed him my paintings.
lured him out
with my bad poems. he
found friends in the array of ghosts i maintain under my fingernails,
and
in the old wool watchcap kept stuffed down at the bottom of my studio bag.

i fed him in the framingham night
and in the cold foreign springtime.
and we
made
peace-raids at the reservoir.
kept track
of the hours of "stargazing" spent there. while pale gods lay strewn  allover
the hillside
and in the rain
and the snow.
and the overcalculated days where it was too hot.

outside,
we sweated morphine
and ****** to tom waits,
luncheoned on the grass.
i
bore our banner and he reared his
black
buffalo head.
we slunk down into breakfast booths

i had soapy teeth.

he had a gut that burned slow like a trinket-drawer left
unopened for
years.
the ghost in my jacket, he shrinks down and curls up when he
should get big.
-reaches out to the tops of cabinets nobody can reach.
i remember him
my ghost thinks he's funny,
but
drawers get opened.
and ghosts get nervous
and coats get put away.