Haunted Homestead

Whatever you wish you were
Thinking, you’ll have to converse
However creaking permits—

Shambolic, formulaic
Utterances, backtracking,
Hesitant, squeaked, fragmented,

And mostly about yourself
When you thought you were thinking
Carefully about the world.

Even for a poltergeist,
The setting constrains the voice
Knocking in the boards. You wish

Your site were uncannier—
Cemetery after dark,
Telescope hawking a hill—

But you’re trapped in a parlor,
A wraith under the sofa
In a farmhouse no one wants.