Phantom

Ashes, smoke,
campfire at the riverside
RA sleeps and the
fog resurrects, primeval, and
retakes the shore.
Tents poor protection against
the dangerously personal world
pressing 'gainst the dewy walls.
A sound: a breaking branch,
the wind, some nocturnal roamer
glimpsed through the haze?
An illusion? A phantom from the
ancient forest come
to suck intruding souls?

Elsewhere, nothing left
but concrete, wires, smoke from
an abandoned car at
the curbside.
All these: phantoms, when
we've given up on
this world
as well.