Ghost Town
Caroline Klocksiem
Eclipsed space you wake to: scooped-out
beds and the pillow circles where heads have been.
Take nightmares to the emptied kitchen, spin ‘em
across the table like cloud-
eyed marbles. Swallow icebox cherries whole. All yours
cool water worming tart red curves. Midnight pit
the others choked on: the one cast out
your own throat’s black.
Once, your dragon
mouth creaked. Rickety threshold the sheep stamped through.
When you took everything
in, you held it there. Leftovers gobbled up
just like that— Left goblinized, left nothing
behind but a few pale last. Remainders like scattered
pairs of glass-old eyes. What’s left
what’s spinning, and what’s caught between
your ripe red teeth. Ghosts sharpen wide
awake, especially in your dark feeling starved.
Caroline Klocksiem is a graduate of Arizona State University’s creative writing MFA program, a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship recipient, and co-poetry editor for 42opus.
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