ghost chicken coop 

in the grandfather yard i would collect
phantom chicken eggs. sometimes he was
standing there, hands on his cane.
inside the eggs were stories without walls. 
a nickel, hole in the middle. gun powder. coal. 
soft fruit of the jungle's hair. he would
help me find the eggs. ask me if we 
should go in for dinner yet. i always told him
"no" & we spent all the dark on each other.
when i draw my ancestors, i draw that
chicken coop. the one that stood as tall 
as a water tower in the yard before i was here.
my family is a series of befores. before 
the ocean. before the city. before horses.
before guns. the truth is the coop was empty
the whole time my grandfather lived 
at what is now my parents' house. still,
my grandfather fed them. took his ghost to be
with their ghost. so i did the same. often i feel
like the only one interested in tending this history.
maybe we all think this though. we keep
what we can. how do i know my father
didn't harvest too? didn't try to draw all our faces
like a rosary back into the water. still, it was only me
out plucking eggs from the moon's ringing light.
once i found an egg with a picture inside.
before i could swallow it, the frame emptied
just a small square of a night. i stuck it
behind a cloud. let the wave wash it into
the night's blue. i laid down, tried to remember
who it was. i thought it was a picture of myself
but maybe it was a girl he loved or maybe it was
just a future piece of land on which i can
build a coop. i raise chickens now. my grandfather
feds them. i find him only on the clear nights.
i ask him if he walked all the way here. 
he never answers. the chickens peck at the dark.
i do too, convinced i can hold the memories 
of other bodies. my blood, like a yolk. 
a pocket watch in the sink.