Alcatraz

sometimes ghosts hitch themselves to uteri
trespassing indelicately 
to ride the rough rough Pacific
in a semi-watery semi-bloody not-quite-grave.

there’s an ancient stink in the clink
it’s archetypical in context:
crime/capture/confinement/escape
it’s maddening in reality.

someones must have died here 
(they don’t tell you on the audio tour)
i’m breathing in their death like dandelion puff
their confinement is my confinement 
is their confinement; i can’t quite cry it out enough.

we showered meticulously when home
scrubbing at leftover sadness with loofa and salt
i forgot about that empty pear-shaped vessel 
stuck solemnly beneath the constant fullness of gut.

sometimes ghost come to full term in less than 37 weeks
bathed in their own tears and lullabyebyed in echo
they find ways to creep out like they creeped in
seeking comfort in escape, death is footnoted.

my body a cracked egg, oozing with ectoplasm
sometimes ghosts take up more space than they know
cleaving an ozone-shaped hole, they meander on and on

i forgot to be forewarned, now i’m all solitude and clank.