A ghost and a half per person in this country,
assuming that the population is both even
and divisible, assuming that 
from our very births a ghost follows us, 
a wisp of memory
expanding as a breath into the atmosphere,
gathering in the formless particles of the passed
(evenly dispersed, not localized)— unless
the dead bloom into a thunderhead,
towering over towns, haunting those already haunted.

What will carry them? What winds will wash the dying,
“trapped and concentrated” in these eroding mountains,
past the problem of our seven thousand children, 
past the stillness on the kitchen floor,
past our pine green deserts, 
out to sea?