our neighbor's lights 

if i am being honest
i miss when the house beside us
was bursting with ghosts.
for a year it was vacant. i saw 
a shadow in the yard eating plums.
sometimes rats would dart
from a hole in the building's siding.
of course we never went inside
but we liked to try to guess 
what kinds of photographs bloomed
in the dark. once, the porch light
flickered on. no one was home
but the ghosts. i came out. turned on
light on too. i thought i smelled
cigarettes. the same family used to own
both of our houses. i can feel the tether
in the earth. some greedy money face guy
bought the house & kicked out the ghosts.
for months they gutted it. bibles
& skeletons & teeth all piled 
in a dumpster. now a family lives there
& they leave too many lights on. 
they have a porch light & a blaring light
& another light that severs the dark
like a machete. on occasion though
they are not home & the dark
swallows the house. the ghosts return. they stand
a ways away in the corn field. 
i invite them into my yard where
we eat plums. they ask, "can we go inside?"
i am never sure if they mean their old house
or my house. you would never let me
bring them in here. i try to explain 
that someone else lives there now.
maybe they understand or maybe 
they do not. the lights return. their cars
coming & going like bees from a hive.
i wave to them sometimes. 
headlight tunneling home. 
our porchlight dark.