Lonesome Lot

What is a soul if not an invisible wake
From a boat nobody can prove exists
On a river of mist and dark clouds?

I was at a carnival when I saw souls
Lining up by a man who was guessing
Weight for a dollar with a butcher’s scale.

They wore the shoes of nurses
Who caught amputated limbs
In World War II, their angel wings

And lifejackets down around their knees,
Which were bruised from kneeling.
The barker was robbing them blind,

Winking to a woman who could have
Been Mary except for the tattoos.
Later she rode through a ring of fire

On a dirt bike. They had an inside joke
They kept giggling about, probably
Some debauchery of the Carney underworld.

On the trip home, a buck running along
Side the car was gone so quickly
It was like it was never there.

Its scared eyes told of a life of deception,
The land wet with rain pulled up from Lethe
By clouds that could shape-shift into anything.

Everything’s a big secret in the world
Of phantasmagorical presentations and possibility.
Just go to the graveyard and ask around.