GHOST OF A THRILL
I don’t know what little Jim and I
were thinking when we let these town girls
—a little younger than us, I think—
drive us out into the country to a deserted house
to walk inside on its rotting boards
lucky to not fall into the utterly black basement
as we walked up the stairs listening to their
tale of family murder in this house and
then clomping back down on those doubtful steps
following those two in their equally doubtful hysteria
upon seeing the ax-wielding ghost of the mad father
—driving back—one dropping off the other at her chicken-farm home
Nothing was left, only the odor of grass and avian excrement
in the late summer night, no possibility of
thrills of any kind. The remaining one dropped us off
with nary a word, and we in turn kept our thoughts to ourselves
those ghosts within the cracking frame
would remain ever
dubious
-- John Zedolik