Today she is screaming

from the socket behind my left eye

we can’t have this

—I tell her—

there is too much to do

we have people to visit

we have library cards to renew

it has been almost a week

of her latest tantrum, somewhere

in the mulch

between eyes and brain

last night she called at 3am

at the threshold of my sleep-sight

in a dream that is the mirror

of the waking-room:

from the hollow-door

she launches at me

with a shriek-song and a banshee-smile

flesh falling from her frozen lips

as she dead-hand clasps

the back of my neck.

Pinned. Petrified. Paralyzed.

she tears green-fibres with hollowed-teeth

an Ireland rugby jersey I lost

somewhere in 1999,

that was my favourite.

I wake with an apnea death-rattle

and feel the bed wet between my legs

but can’t tell if its urine or cum.

37-years old. 220 lbs.

Fumbling for the night-light.

In a damp bed

With a violent ghost in the laundry.

White light. White light. Wight lite. Wight-like.

She can’t recover lost treasures.

Or un-make your laundry.

Or un-rot your food.

Or un-bury your dead.

She can’t leave your head.

in the end it is neither

water or seed

the heating has kicked-off and

my ice-breath curls about the empty room as

the sheets lime with frost about my feet.

It was a night like this almost one year ago

that the pipes burst.