they left with the rubber companies.
Don’t misunderstand me.
Rubber workers who die
don’t become ghosts.
Ghosts experience freedom.
When a rubber worker dies
their skeleton keeps running the machines,
vulcanizing their shed flesh.
You visit your grandfather’s
grave in Akron.
The headstone is illegible, or
you wish it were.
Really, it says
Here lies a tireless worker,
or so we thought.
Ghosts bleed, you know?
But only at their own hands.
They do this often.
It’s a form of remembering,
like an exit sign on the highway
in a state you desperately hope
not to sleep in tonight.
Ghost blood is a
priceless commodity,
but ghosts never sell it.
They know better.
They know the price of everything.