I turned the corner, as I do  
On evenings such as these,
And saw a gaping emptiness
Where I expected trees.

I had no cause to mourn their loss
For I was not deprived 
Of beauty, only scraggly birches
That somehow had survived. 

The neighborhood had thought this lot
Not buildable at all,
But people push their projects through
Their cronies at Town Hall.

The builders leveled what was left
And used the muck for fill;  
The frame went up in record time,
Then everything went still.

That was eleven years ago.
This place still looks the same:
No kitchen, furniture, or doorbell—
The staircase just a frame.

The rumors flew, then quickly drooped;
There was no explanation.
Who leaves a house almost complete?
What was their motivation?

This site went dead before its birth.
Despite its eerie gloom,
Its somberness and creaking boards,
No spirit haunts a room.

Unlike forlorn Victorians
Or factories of old,
This house, like halls of shopping malls,    
Is silent and unsouled. 

Our offices are ghostless too,
For when our lives have run,
We do not search our cubicles  
For audits left undone.