Origin of Ghost Ships

These times fly in locust clouds,
ate the happiness, man,
clean out of my friend’s house,
his best memories gone
to ravaged stalks.
Kids unloosed
to a cheaper part of town,
fight imaginaries from a cardboard fort
in the apartment complex parking lot,
as the family takes the first dead steps
to maybe gypsy bound.
He sends resumes to foreign states
where he doesn't know the freeways yet,
and fills out job app forms off tablets
at Walmart, Walgreen, Sears,
nervous fear brining up his blood
so he scratches out errors, draw in arrows.
His insides a canyon with some tourist lost,
and yelling for help.
Parents stare at him
same as a wanted man,
and why did he bring all this to them,
like the law was about to come crashing in
for a Dad without a job,
unemployment coming to an end,
waiting for a son to ask for money
as if he was pulling out a gun.
Cable long gone, no videos they can rent,
the family inside one lamp, plays Life,
Monopoly, Chutes & Ladders, Sorry.
Or, they fight...what the bedroom’s for.
Beer. Makeup. Food. School supplies.
This budget scrapes away their skin.
Pantry cabinet reveals their fortunes
in growing expanse of naked wood,
prophecy in spare and dusty prose,
as his wife counts the chili cans.
They moved furniture out at night,
shutting off the front porch light
to stuff the couch into the Astro Van
quiet enough to steal it from themselves.
No neighbors to carry their pictures,
end tables, headboards, oak chairs,
like they did when the family first moved in.
Who’d gut a home so cold and quick?
Those fated by HR charts to lose it.
Ghost ship with a residential address,
story for the old school’s pancake breakfast,
He stands where the bitter got born
for all the hard old men he’s seen,
salt-cured stance, eyes cemented in,
silent wife, kids who never come around,
words dragged up one bucket at a time.