jack johnson will be waiting
with an extra pair of gloves
sent there to show him
how to tap dance
around the ring
giving the sun
a bloody lip
as jeff yells out a poem
& takes his heart
out of an invisible wooden box
passing it around
to all the secondhand ghost girls in worcester & shrewsbury
who never got to know
what it truly felt like to love themselves
pressing their ears up against it
that poem beating in his chest now
like a battered drum
like a fist waiting
to walk them home.