Prior Ghosts

The House on front until six months. Occupying the land is a two story Victorian. Inside are moths. Mice in winter. A cat couple of twenties work through college. The upper floor, make up of two bathrooms, magazines substitutes, curler graveyards, uppers, flatteners, downers and zippers. Piled generations. Turns in on itself.

The twos sleep in two bedrooms. Both slanted ceilings accord in tune with the pitched New England Roof. Going bygone.

And that sometimes suburbs. The harps and piano hammers champions and proclaim the fall down. Such an outdated, otherwise modern.

The Mouse tails from under the baseboard. Apparent, he has a counter, a source of food. A long winter spends what's no more part of his body than what singles him out as a rodent of certain size. Evidences himself. His search faster than a heart's. Lease in our chests. Darts the eyes might discern.

He disappears to incomplete labyrinth of remnant selves that bridge entrance to what only a mouse knows. Is particularly light what he pursues?

The Cat and mouse an agreement: no one moves until we are distracted. From a periphery. Show themselves in greater detail. Look at the wrong location in the sky to star. Too dim if directly. Each movement a dance toward. In beginning, when God cats, them whiskered to balance wayward unequal agility. Since, cats' histories marked by continual tempt man the same.

Koe, which means cow, is cat. Crosses between my legs I walk.

The Table at which four seated. Each points another person. Consumes food and takes wine. Two more sociably themselves, while two sleepy. Frozen, the knives of the hands awakened help the others, fully dressed. Saved animation. The sleepers said,"There is occasion for a thorough search." If an object misses, can you imagine a world contains that object? To replace the object recycles nostalgia that fails on level with form: no longer can it occupy that space.

How Contents of the world are recognized we call out,"Koe, Koe!" Our harshest voices. Imagine he could have been where last.

The Moths noise against glass light. Hurried butterflies, they encounter warmth no human clothes. Body in the armoire jackets and dresses reveals age when it stops."Must come back here and stand," front of the loneliness in antique wood. Get bearing on my thoughts. So many, I still feel twenty.

The Moon calls "Night," under her negligee.












Ryan Daley lives in Providence where he is an M.F.A. candidate at Brown University. He usually lives in places where he can lie prone. He was a translator but outdates Malinche. And as a teacher prefers other quenchers to hemlock. Previous work can be found in Jacket Magazine, Spindrifter, Shampoo and Blazevox.






                       BACK