There are Ghosts in the Coral Reefs

I read an article that spoke of spokes    
and wheels, parts of cars sent to sea,      
seeds for tomorrow's coral reefs,    
and I remembered wondering      
     
if fish are at ease in the complex      
neighborhood of steel and wood,    
if eels can lurk in the dark, spring    
out from underneath bucket seats.    
     
Ghosts are real, they say, there's science,    
but they are ghosts of ourselves      
burned into places lived and loved in,      
traces of acts, left where we ached.    
     
When the thorny and the anemone      
claim and encrust the cars' fenders    
and the leather, is the snapper      
nourished by what we left behind?    
     
Does the trigger fish sense our seething?    
Will the coral, flowers of the seas,      
flourish hearing snatches of what      
we said to ourselves while driving?    
   
They are vehicles steeped in stories,    
venues of quarrels with self,      
but loved, washed, polished on weekends,    
now homes to fishes and phantoms.    
     
We leave more than our fingerprints      
in the leather, we emboss the fevers      
of our living when we grip the wheel,    
we burn our pain onto rearview mirrors,    
     
we are the ghosts in the coral reefs.