Janitor Ghost
When the owls are out of town
his studded boots kick-up featherless hoots.
He is the creak and groan of tired wood,
The splutter of an old aircon
yet more;
all inexplicable noises belong to him.
He crawls through crawl spaces to prop up places.
A chunky phantom who tinkers with gurgling drains.
He's the one who unplugs the unpluggable,
then trips the fuse box at night while you pee.
I hear him stumble bent between rafters,
imagine his bum crack mooning cobwebs and shadows.
He wheezes through long unheeded chores.
A maintenance ghost
grumbling as he bends over a beer belly,
that unseen plumber who rattles shaky pipes,
working hard on his night shift,
He's a clatter in the crapper,
patching up leaks between colliding worlds,
nudging our sleep as we cover ears
in our fretful dreams.