THOSE WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS

By: Julie Benesh

may or may not own a television

or allow children to eat ice cream;

might worship at the big white church

or the dark cathedral, at the altar

of consumer goods or dynastic fortunes.

must live in the present

as the slimmest of gifts,

mere stocking-stuffers;

or the future: master

the universe, smart

in-every-room,

die with all the jacks.

Deniers of empathies

or downright enemies

in your fancy-crap cars

off to your crap-fancy jobs

not making eye contact

with pedestrians who try

to cross the street in the rain

splashed by rushed puddles

of your pending redundancy.

Praise yourselves,

faking your making!

The lucky blessed:

among the haunt

or be haunted,

you, the haunters.

Mausoleums teem with your ilk,

despite the logical impossibility

—the irony!—of your legacy.

Those who

don’t ever see the ghosts

doomed to ever be the ghosts.

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Julie Benesh is author of the chapbook ABOUT TIME from Cathexis Northwest Press. She has published work in Tin House, Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Another Chicago Magazine, JMWW, Maudlin House, New World Writing, Cleaver, Sky Island Journal, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program and recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Grant. Read more at juliebenesh.com.