There’s Something in the Wall
A humming runs down dry cracks in the paper’s skin
and hoping it’s braille I spread my fingers thin, thumbing
for eye sockets, nostrils, follicle hairs
but you always did look to the sky, saying he lines the crown
molding, dots zits on the popcorn ceiling, swarms cobwebs and dust.
Tell me now, sweet disciple, does noise alone prove life
after death?
Feeling nothing, I lean onto the shoulder of the window-
pane, and seat my ear against the wall. A shrill cry runs out
from under the paint and plays about my ear. Someone
is in here.
The voice is sweet honey, vowels pouring consonants but
what’s this she said? The woman now shivers and whispers my name, she
warns someone is coming. Yes, someone about the doorframe.
The floorboard whines as I inch closer, touching my lips
to the vibration, inhaling sweet breath through the wall, but
then quiet footsteps ask, ‘What’s this you’re doing?’
‘I’ve found God,’ I say, ‘and she’s stuck here, in this wall.’
