Ghost House

The slideshow was fascinating at first, the
gore-development looking suspiciously like
the warped soul’s half-smoke coagulating and
retreating to the bell tower. Alone dickering with
charm’s special effects: the abductee’s whirring escape
flirt. For a long time preserved in the dead oxygen
of Zoloft capsules, each kiss spring out pixie thin.
This way we all leave houses that don’t want to let
us go, along country roads lined with cussing sneering
lawn ornaments. If you squint they turn into dull orange
skulls creepier than this. Pick up your cane, Aphrodite,
your cane made of carnivals but when they die and
peel off there’s only a heap of old dusty leaves on
the threshold, chip-tune ringing forever through
the hallway. Fans have since the seventies launched
white-eyed raids on the famous Hollywood ghost house;
what’s left of you stamp jaunty and mad, peg leg,
for it’s finally been sold.