francine j. harris

All alone, you use kitchen to investigate wall and tendency to twerk and so on spotify channel called little ditties for strumpets metal, and make room a petal, shake doom and bevel

She wants to set the house on fire, gas in both hands, gas on the wall. It’d be like the sea torched from its floor. She’d run like light from basement windows. or maybe suck all arms to room ablaze, so housed in gut piping. the copper hollowed, reaching to a heated black rot at bottom. Like ants; maybe she crawl in the dark. low on the belly maybe she thug out late, lay low and ink eight walls. lay low like cold, she might strip bare, black glass. sometimes strut, sometimes hide late. she runs from house to ember, a sum of sink. She breathes through flame a room of spoons. one bar brick, one black-eyed room splatter, one torch spent for each arm, from coal to alley, she heaves hue of concrete into each limb. A house of blue-ring flames to mimic; someone better run.

Listen first for anyone. Fill your pockets. Measure the ditch with a wad of gum. Listen. Stay still. Break open the gate with your fist. a backseat to torch. Ditch it. You will need someone, still. but later. from a pay phone. for the rope. Empty your pockets. Check for wild fur and the pant. who wad seats. or possums who hiss under wild shrub. Sharp shooters check the wind. So measure your mouth. the curve of howl. drool and its drop against the wooden tiles. Possum under salt and pine. Screech it. Score the rope with your teeth. Collect the drool in tin. Check for rust. Pull out the nails. Wait for the wood to sag of blood. to good and stalled. Mount the mouth. slip down. Slide under sludge, until the caves open and break. and salt your wounds. and play the black cricket. and nail on the stars. Run low to ground. until your hairs unseat. and your cheek full of shotgun howls. and sags. and, and touches its own blood to light.

The dad. body has just enough gravy on his plate to sop up one piece of bread. So, enough for one supper, says the mom. She comes back to him, says don’t argue with mom, you’re a ghost. There’s enough water around to drown a cob in its husk. in a dad. He puts up weather stripping all night. to keep out the mom. He says I should have cooked for you more. She thinks she could make her own insulin. to keep from going into dad. She says I should have married a ghost. says: You have a little raisin on your lip. a little. The mom says stop all that quiet, it’s foolish. Come on now, dad. come to ghost. says the ghost. I won’t even warn the mom. I won’t even flinch if the ghost tries to hold her mom. After all, a good séance starts with enough food and a mom. The ghost with a biscuit in meat. The mom with the smell of cracked dad. sucked out of oxygen. The mom is a smell of wrecked vines. You, the dad. with no teeth. And no, (the mom) is a garden full of ghost. No. says the dad: lost in ashes. No city is complete. its own worst ghost. who can’t remember the ghost now, the ghost says: All your selves know, now. They ghost like the bushel of a snowflower. Everyone is dead. now. says, the ghost. The mom is a yard of blackening petals. At night, I have really long dads. Without the ghosts, I wake in a puddle of ghost. But you’ll be mom one day. to know I am alive. We are all sappy dad, aren’t we. Tell the ghost, it’s ok. Let the bodies lie ghost for a while. I mom of you. I mom of you a lot.