haunted
houses have ghosts
who try to scare you out
or christian demons who kill you –
just kill
you dead –
but my parents’ old, wooden house
stopped short term memories
from forming be-
tween rooms
haunted
houses have ghosts
who try to scare you out
or christian demons who kill you –
just kill
you dead –
but my parents’ old, wooden house
stopped short term memories
from forming be-
tween rooms
daymares
like jealousies
anxieties or grief
haunt like terrible babadooks:
morning
life’s a half-crazed, wildeyed thriveling
her pupils tremble and dilate
in a dream she seems
to walk along the cornstalks
eating ryebread
she thumbs seeds
into the sand
.
death’s a half-sane, disconnection spanning
her non-claws don’t click,
constantly cleaving
s/he saunters along the concrete
with a smile but no plan
eats nothing and drags
life by her hair
will twice –
receive 1 – what
other sum carries un-
numbers, hauntologies, little
tao ghosts?
you are near to me
when you’re here and you’re away
a perfect haunting
In the morning, I leave my body and float to your house, a cool specter, a breeze traveling in a breeze down three streets to your little box snuggled against more boxes. Your curtains tremble and the dawnbeams struggle toward your face, because I have always brought the temperature of the room down upon entering. And you speak in your sleep. It’s cold, cold. No. It’s too cold. Go away. So your room and I sag woefully and your walls wilt and I float on, homeward, and close my eyes. I stretch my flesh back on and pull the sheets up closer to my face to escape the cold. Then I roll over and check the time on my magic voice machine, lately a quiet birdcage. And outside, a day stretches its way out of the tenebrous fibers of a night, like the emergence of a warm, wet egg. So phantoms may no longer roam. And somewhere, you wake up.