Tonight I can’t remember

the date, November 25,

2017, which I write

at the top of every page.

Nobody who doesn’t worry

about getting paid on time

is worried about the same things

I worry about, and that’s the

subject of my next poem

in which I forget every address

and wander around central New

Jersey, sneezing,

until I meet the ghost

who asked me questions

on the highway

about why am I so interested in ghosts.

“Why do you have a ghost thing”

asks the ghost.

“Why do you think”

I reply, sweeping my arm

to indicate the totality of capitalist social relations

which I have made my subject

over the years, patiently. As for

the landscape, it’s the same deal:

big but not too big,

metaphysical but not too metaphysical,

irradiated but not too irradiated,

impractical but not too impractical.

The poem is a building

I drum up as proof of this.

Immediately I dream I am

transformed into a town house.

***