Domestic Life
Houses always have ghosts
So don’t ever believe you’re alone.
Some dead soul will be watching your every step,
and, being dead, it has an enormous sense of justice.
It knows both sides of the universe, after all.
Remember your house ghost! It will keep you honest.
It will rattle the panes when it senses a wrong-doing,
and shut off the lights to remind mere mortals
how short a time we have in the light.
Heed your house ghost! It has years of experience.
It will watch out for burglars and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
It will keep the roof patched and lick up the crumbs.
It will keep your cat company.
(Now you know what that cat’s been chasing after.)
A good house ghost will last you a lifetime—and then some.
It will only scare you if you deserve it.
—San Francisco, 2 April 1988
rlboyington 
If you, dear reader, will peruse these posts – including archives of the earliest – you will see three of the twenty poems selected for publication. Several more lie in wait within the pages of the journal that will be published later (along with the numerous short stories, the 1-act play, etc.).