I’ve seen a ghost house in the street

loom up behind a man with lice wearing a blanket

who was someone I love, a father or a brother.

Do you know how it is to hold on to anything in the dark,

said the man who was the child of unspoken wishes

rattling the toys in the ghost house?

The velocity of fear overtakes the spin of a warring planet,

and the scent of urine reminds the house of the child in diapers

who fell asleep to the sound of his mother rustling

the sheets while evil took a turn in the house.

The sound emphasized songlessness

of a mother who could not watch and turned on the

television. She slept and slept while

the children grew in the house that slanted

toward the thing devouring it.

There’s no easy way to know this thing, said the man

who grew smaller in the shadow of the house as it leaned over

to smell the tender neck of the child as he sipped

wine with other strangers.

When the earth makes a particularly hard turn

someone can fall off—a house can tilt

toward the street or ride the hip of destruction.

To maneuver deftly can mean learning another angle

of motion to take the place of wine

and other spirits caught by shiny glass or powder

attracted by the wound of those who once knew how to sing.

I’m sorry, said the house who sat down by the man

who’d taken refuge in the street.

The inhabitants could be heard disappearing

through aluminum walls as the boy bent

to the slap and beating by the father who was charged 

with loving and nothing in him could answer to that angel.

I could not protect you, cried the house:

Though the house gleamed with appliances.

Though the house was built with postwar money

and hope.

Though the house was their haven after the war.

Though the war never ended.