McCormick House Inn
Perhaps there were other ghosts.
Late Victorian: gathered bustle, waist
And arms tight, and damask color of fall
Softwoods. Before a window re-glazed and re-cased
With gingerly fuss, or down a period wall-
Papered hall, your guests would see her, they’d swear:
The loath wife of the lumber baron, who,
To tempt her into this wilderness, razed a square
Of forest, planted this wooden castle. Did you
Ever see her? – wake your lover and strain
In the dark for footfalls? – or, after he’d left you, find
Ajar the doors of the Qing armoire, explain
To friends why your terriers balked and whined
At the stairs? Or now that you yourself are dead,
Is it you alone who keeps this house instead?
James Scannell McCormick lives and teaches college writing in Rochester, Minnesota. He thinks that his poetry is darkly humorous. Or humorously dark. Sometimes others do, too.