Michael Sikkema Haunted Passages Poem: “How to Be a Haunted House”

Haunted Passages: Michael Sikkema

How to Be a Haunted House

After the first rain
shove up what’s been
buried in the flowerbeds
The teeth. The toy trucks
The steak knife

Use your
face
to bend
the others

Bleed brighter

Stay in
the sharp part
of the story
until it hurts
right. Find
that small
voice and
stretch it

Fog the changes

Manifest your walkers
in earlier clothes

No neon

No fanny packs

Look out your windows
with both hands

Burn the fresh paint off
as soon as it’s applied
Leave only the first name
the middle no last

Embrace the fact that dust
is always singing

Set the dogs to barking only
in the smallest hours

Wait. Wait
Squeezebox the staircase
Lurch the floor
Tunnel everyone into
the nursery

Work the pipes,
the ducts, the chimney

Morse code antique door handles
in ¾ time

Don’t neglect
the out buildings
the garden
Don’t neglect
the statuary. Brighten
the little drawings

Call, recall, you’re all
of it, peak to crawlspace

Follow the scars in the floor
for a few more decades
before you fit them to the wheels

Control your breath until you
shed your skin in reverse

Spiders of course and snakes
but a 4 point buck standing
in the kitchen chewing grass
is even better

Say the weakest’s name
when they’re in the shower

Say it again later when
they’re getting themselves close

Say it more softly as they wander
through you calling
hello hello hello

Let the grass in the buck’s mouth
turn to a young child’s hair

Do all that
three more times

Michael Sikkema is from the Great Lakes region and is the author of Caw Caw Phony, forthcoming from Trembling Pillow Press, 2021.

Image: worthpoint.com