Verse Daily: [There is no ghost in this house.] by Cynthia Marie Hoffman

There is no ghost in this house. It is still a new house. No one has died here. People rarely die in their houses anymore, or are born in them. Yet the hall that leads to the stairway has its shimmerings, the stair its spontaneous crack. Three times in darkness I pass through to sit in the chair with the baby. She is the most alive thing in the house, her spirit most freshly settled in its body. The sound of the highway brushes against the window, and her heart is a plum springing on its stem. A warm sweet scent. If the ghost waits for me to cross from door to door, it surely touches me. If it breathes, it breathes in deep.