My adopted sister Ethel sat opposite me at the dinner table, waiting for the food to arrive in the multicolored bowls Mom had gotten long ago, to cheer Ethel up and encourage her to eat. Ethel was
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Originally published in The Dread Machine
The poltergeists come,
one by one,
and they do not know
one another's faces,
only the shapes their bodies
etch in the red darkness;
the new shapes their bodies carve
together, shadow-puppets
in the sound-proof chamber.
She thinks of the Red Sea
as she parts her lips for them,
the rains of Mars,
the russet soil darkening, soaking
as she opens herself up,
film clattering,
family lives unspooling
on the floor.
The poltergeists leave the darkroom
the way they came: faceless
and one by one. Only
the photographer remains.
She unpins her shirt and skirt,
hanging from the taut rope,
her underwear playing
tic-tac-toe between half-formed photographs.
She removes her wedding
ring from the chemical developer bath.
The gold band burns on her finger,
eating at her skin,
the way of hungry ghosts.