in the attic, a plank extended between the crossbeams over the living room ceiling to the room built by your father
women followed him there then departed hours later down the ladder recessed into the wall
one night his leg burst through the ceiling then snaked back through the hole
II.
your mother is busy in the next room with her new lover
you watch the changing colors of your father's injury as he sleeps on the couch
the spell
my mother used to compel me with her distance it was a diffident spell that made me imagine we were connected
but the vagaries of haunted girls look unhealthy in women and harden into caricature in old age
Cherryvale