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