Katie McMorris

Allowing Your House Ghosts to Steal Your Loafers

despite relative translucency their hands
still grasp for what they miss most
candles turtlenecks cranberries every ghost
misses fruit Bartlett pears Cortland apples

ghosts grieve their appetite haven’t you
heard the screaming in your kitchen
it’s not you this time they shake pepper
everywhere you think your kitchen is full

of mites you hate mites you can’t even
sleep without stripping the bed there’s
always a ghost rocking under the sheets
one color-coding your bookshelf a third

begging you to sing her favorite church
hymns do ghosts sleep too or are they
too busy missing their antidepressants
it’s all perpetual fog once you die

do you know how your house ghosts died
do you know about the strip pit the flood
the ATV accident the knife surely they told
you about the knife you probably didn’t

even ask you were thinking about your
children your daughters begin wearing
overcoats buttoned to the neck use
words like thrice draw places you’ve

never been Patagonia Alcatraz the most
dangerous schoolhouses with incorrect
maps of America your daughters won’t tell
you where they’ve seen these images

but you suspect your house ghosts
they’re probably teaching your children
about sex and anarchy and all the weed
they smoked what else is there to do

once you’re dead you send the ghosts
next door to the woman with biblical
cross stitching Judges 3:17 Eglon was
a very fat man you never did understand

such piety she’s putting roses in a vase
for a man who isn’t coming home she’s
putting roses in a vase and you know
why it’s always the reason you’re thinking

your house ghosts stay next door you
hear their weeping perhaps it’s nothing
perhaps they’re mourning Jeff Buckley
even ghosts mourn Jeff Buckley they

must do something haunt something
it’s only fair why else do you refuse
to go to aquariums no one expects ghosts
to press through the glass not even

the seahorses aren’t you excited to haunt too
anything to distract from your lack
of SSRIs your house ghosts trickle back
they’re sad they’ll never taste heartbreak

ice cream again they don your pearls
pretend they’re living they always lose
your loafers you stopped looking for your
lipstick they can’t kiss you but sometimes

you wish they could you saved the crawlspace
behind your eyes for moments like this
your house ghosts need a place to rest let
them dwell near your face where it’s warm

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Katie McMorris is a writer and dancer. She lives and teaches in Oklahoma.