1.

I am haunted by It.

I see it in the shadows of the hall,

hanging beneath a girl’s grey eyes

like from a gallows’ pole.

I am haunted by It.

2.

The only son of a dying line

blessed by God, yes-

but the benediction lingers on his body, his soul,

like a neon ‘open’ sign

with the weight of a black hole.

…

I am the distraught princess,

locked up in a room full of hay

and forced to turn it to gold.

How? How on Earth can They

expect this of me?

3.

Shattered shells dance on the beach

like little white ballerinas,

though the footwork is off;

the beat is too hard, too fast;

the swells crushing, despite their nature.

…

I saw the skull of a deer behind my house.

“Starved, probably,” my dad said to me.

Imagine that – this graceful creature’s

swan song was nothing more

than the sound it made hitting the ground.

…

The floor creaks, tree boughs shake,

thunder trembles off in a canyon somewhere–

the other shoe dropping, perhaps,

or a series of escalating “accidents”

with a door; a bottle; a gun.

 

4.

An innocent cry snuffed in the dark,

but ripped from my throat at the last second.

A dove comes back with an olive branch;

it drops it with a solid thud

on the deck of my ark.

 …

Light reflects through shattered glass,

showing how to piece the puzzle together

one fragment at a time.

It takes shape again, the mirror,

though not without a visible chink in the armor.

5.

I am haunted by It.

I see it in the shadows of the hall,

hanging beneath a girl’s grey eyes

like from a gallows’ pole.

I am haunted by It.