Ghosts

I do not believe in ghosts.
And yet.
I have lived in houses where
those now dead must once have lived,
perhaps even where they died—
in Victorian terraces,
a coach house, and a cottage
that once stood back from the cliffs
before Brighton spread eastwards.
And yet
in none of them did I feel
the lingering of the dead.
We might find a name pencilled
before the wallpaper was hung,
a fag packet, Players Please,
beneath the boards, rusting poles
for the wireless aerial.
And yet
these are vestiges of life,
of continuing to be,
the soft archaeology
of the human condition
in a world where suits are worn
and children eat potatoes,
mopping up the gravy.
And yet
I do not believe in ghosts.