BY Alex Carrigan
After Taylor Swift’s “seven”
I’ve been meaning to tell you I think your house is haunted.
You confuse the crying at night for the creaking staircase.
The creaking staircase is just a sign of how old your home
is, you say. How it’s simply how they made houses back then.
They made houses back then to lure men back from war-torn shores
and villages, to replace funeral wailing with children’s laughter.
Children’s laughter can only really survive while the
sun is up, while the crying can go without sleep.
It goes without sleep because it is always looking for a space
in the half bathroom or the kitchen pantry to let itself out.
It lets itself out in private because otherwise it will spill out
onto your empty dinner plate when your wife finally disappears.
Your wife finally disappears when she runs out of hiding spaces.
I’ve been meaning to tell you I think your house is haunted.
Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has appeared in The Broadkill Review, Sage Cigarettes, Barrelhouse, Fifth Wheel Press, Cutbow Quarterly, and more. Visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak for more info.