Hannah Forman - The Nature of Ghosts

                               All the time I pray to Buddha I keep on killing mosquitoes
                                                                                        Kobayashi Issa

The earth is reclaiming itself.
This is the closest war has come,

houses barricaded, windows closed
to August heat. A cat sleeps

on a warm bed. The sound of propellers
in the early evening sky fills rooms—

even behind the tightened glass panes
the sound lowers itself over rooftops,

hovers inside the ear—footsteps
trying to outrun nature. The cat cleans her paws.

Trees are now coated with chrysanthemum
pulp, homes of birds and squirrels layered

in lethal gleam. Tonight a crow will lie
its head against the pavement.

Note: This poem was written in August of 1999, the summer in which spraying of
pesticides began in New York City in response to West Nile Virus.