foster ghosts / Layne McArdle

foster ghosts

Layne McArdle

Content Notes: childhood trauma and disordered eating

a litter of homeless ghosts lying ‘tween kitchen tiles, curdling unopened milk, scalding your thumbs studding the flour jar with footprints tiny as ticks. borne from the pounds i’ve gained away from home: poltergeists migrating from mold to fondle the space under the tongue, to suckle from soft veins.

you’ll find her under a sliver of linoleum that curls like burnt paper behind the knives and the oil (the landlord is sure to strip this clean for the new tenants) and yet i brood, ergo, she breed she sprouts from the detritus, among specks of dirt and crumbs of crackers and curses knit via friction: fuel to fire to grinding to groaning to rust to

tetanus, to genesis as that blighted girl blooms unto expiry dates, after-school guilt-purges, spite-meals, to pools of cold fat congealing between unwashed pans, a slice of stolen lunchmeat, hide-and-seek in the oven,

to dry faucets, to salted earth.

you might settle with the realtor, hang some nice drapes, etcetera. but the stink of her rotting antibody will cling to the walls no matter how many coats of paint you slather on. she will sew glass into the carpets. she will pinch at your thighs while you sleep.

bearing this, who would stay? who would reckon with the reality of the estate?

who would recognize her gestures when they don’t splinter and sear, but instead draw the curtains. let the light in. take the chicken out to thaw.

who would watch spectral fingertips brush against their silk tablecloths and know that she, too, must want a feeling so smooth, so fine.