Guru #1

it all happens
for a reason
she says
the burn dissolve
and smash into vapor
the practice
in dictums
ancient, she says
that mouth that needs feeding
the job you lost
your knees
holding you up
the floor
so cold against
your throat
the mouths have
meaning the best
you is waiting
to be ground
out burned
vaporized
into practice
she has a book
really an ebook
you must
react to endings
she says as if
they’re doors
or windows just
go right through them
 
 

Ghosts

Sure, the house is haunted.
That’s obvious.
The realtor can make a quick sale by mentioning the murder.
Like me, many people want to be frightened.
Somebody put a message in a bottle and later it arrived
on the opposite shore of the future: that ghost showed up on television.
For the others, I thought how sad to be reduced to cupboard doors and jump scares.
They speak only through the hisses and pops of tape recordings.
I once dreamed of a telephone that did nothing and I didn’t try to use it.
I wondered later if I could have spoken to the dead then.
Abandoned toys once used by children seem haunted,
mostly by placement in a dirty wading pool or empty closet.
You looked haunted when you came back but you were only tired.
I’ve been seeing faces in the window but it’s only fear of everything new to lose.
The ghosts in movies still want something, even after the ultimate failure.
I’m tired just thinking of so much wanting.
 
 
 
Letitia Trent’s work has appeared in Fence, Diode, Black Warrior Review, and Sou’Wester. Her books include the novel Echo Lake, the poetry collection One Perfect Bird, and the chapbooks Splice, You aren’t in this movie, and The Medical Diaries. She currently lives in Colorado and sometimes writes and posts photos at http://letitiatrentwriter.blogspot.com.