Persons in Their Own Right

Posit a fabulist’s parable,
A wonder tale of a functional,
Instrumental, ordinary tool,

Something that doesn’t seem magical,
A chair, a door, a bookshelf, a bed.
In the tale a ghost possesses this

Unmagical, functional, useful
Object of no particular worth.
For a long time, the ghost is silent,

Unprotesting as protagonists
Employ it as a mere instrument
Of their own purposes. Then one day,

The chair or bookshelf or bed protests
Not being treated as a person,
Autonomous, ethical being

In its own right. Commotion ensues.
Brutal exorcism rituals.
Debates on the souls of furniture.

Arguments that it’s ridiculous
To credit a bed with a being
Anything more or less than a bed.

Finally it all comes to a head
When the protagonists are revealed
To be haunted furnishings themselves,

The piled comforters muffling the beds,
Tables surrounding themselves with chairs
Books held up by nothing but shelving.