by Dessa Bayrock
No one’s due home for hours absence
fills the house like a warm bath
and the cat stares intently behind me, behind me,
tracking something with his eyes behind me,
that isn’t there.
I think of a hand on that door a hand
on this body think I’d hate
to die this way.
There is nothing in this house, nothing,
I tell myself and I tell the ghost nothing,
and I tell myself
and I turn again and again and again trying
to be faster than my own fear
thinking only, frantically
a hand that door this body
a hand that door this body
Dessa Bayrock is a PhD student in Ottawa, where she lives with two cats and a variety of succulents. Her poems have appeared in The Maynard, OCCULUM, and Half Mystic Press, among others. You can find her, or at least more about her, at dessabayrock.com