here’s one blue pool out there on Langham’s land—
not hard to get to, just behind the shed—
where, if you go on moonlit nights and stand
an hour or two, in it you’ll see the Dead.

Sometimes it’s loved ones—lost kids, murdered wives,
and such as that—but mostly it’s the shapes
of strangers, staring, envying the lives
outside, their eyes black marbles, mouths agape.

They never speak—they just stand there and sway,
and pebbles tossed won’t make the shades disperse;
then, close to sunrise, slowly fade away
to heaven, hell, or maybe something worse:

A black room with one window to the sky
through which the moon stares like a dead white eye.