Breakfast with ghosts and 
the length of the upstairs hallway.

My belief in ghosts is as strong
as my belief in mornings
and my belief in the fog that mocks 
me like angel's plumage shed underneath
the spaghetti-pot lid.
For ghosts the fog is as close
as they get to kissing--
I was born with long corridors
that stretch like waistbands 
and tube socks-- darken
at the edges-- cattle shoots
to another time where you
and I both considered ourselves 
alive-- the first ghosts I knew
lay in sleep held in the black eyes
of stuffed teddy bears-- lurched
forward on a self-- fell for me
to catch and cradle over my brother's crib
when he was still just a 
stack of jealous pancakes--
ghosts
in a cast iron pan.
My front porch was a ghost-- cracked spine
and finger nails dug into the cancerous earth.
I knew the ghosts by name from the factory
building. The building
had bus-driver eyes and it waited
outside the old house on Franklin
Street. I learned that some ghosts
only have one arm and that ghosts like
midnights more than mornings.
My grandfather was a ghost
before he died-- a silhouette
holding a cane like a microphone or
a bouquet of flowers. My father
has always been like him
and I think he doesn't believe
in ghosts because he might just
be one-- entangled in rusted
electric guitar strings in the corner
of the attic.
My mother believes in angles
which are certainly a type of ghost
and she believes in milk blood
and saints and pancakes.
My brother is scared of the end
of corridors.
We both recite the Our Father
under our breath when we
go upstairs alone-- we have
seen so many ghosts-- so many femurs 
in the floor boards-- so many
elbow door knobs-- our house
is the assimilated skeleton
of other people's ghosts and our own--
the parts of us that are already faded
and sucked up under the lid
of the spaghetti pot.
Some people think I eat breakfast alone.
I've set aside this time for
my own ghosts and the ghosts who
wander in through the open
front door-- they like pancakes and they
like to have company in the morning when
they remember that one of us is dead.
We share coffee and stories
about all the journeys we've
taken down long corridors
only to find the closet at the
end of the hall upstairs.