There’s reality’s block of unkempt grass.
And the imagination’s village green.
It overlays the other if I stare long enough.

Like the general store ghost
that occupies the shuttered 5 and dime.
Behind glass, what is dust one moment

is, the next, jams and penny candy,
soap and fishing tackle, brooms and linen.
The diner hasn’t moved from its place

of honor, a block from the old police station.
When the revenants are done haunting the houses,
they make a breakfast stop for the eternal 99c special –

spectral ham and eggs and bacon and home fries
and bottomless cups of coffee for the bloodless.
The hardware store sold its last mouse trap

years before, but the live mice scurry across
the floor pursued by the rodents from years before.
And the fountain may be dry

but the spouts gush with phantom water
and the right kind of person can bend into its spray
and still wash his dirty hands and face there. 

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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.