Poltergeists
       

They move my keys
where I can't find them.
Their expertise
is reassigning

items where
they shouldn't be:
the lost stuffed bear
in a chemise

under a load
of laundry, phone
in the commode.
When I'm alone

(it's rare these days)
I feel their tiny
shadows play
across my mind—

and then my thoughts
are disarranged.
The logic-knots
I'd tied have changed

into a mess
of crayon swirls
that mean, I guess,
a little girl

beside her dad.
The ghosts are cruel,
but I'm not mad,
not quite. They're fools

and strange like me,
a bit less solid,
nine-tenths psyche.
Tonight the squalid

den is evidence
that they've been busy:
one's dispensed
the box of Disney

heroines
across my chair.
The genuine
girl-ghost is there

herself, and stands
against the wall
hiding her hands
and one last doll

behind the sheer,
white drapes. She wants
to disappear.
Her father haunts

this room. He'll chide
her and then fade
his head inside
the books displayed

on shelves out of her
reach. Or perhaps
he'll call her brother,
move both ghouls

out of place
into his lap
until the rules
have been erased.

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Copyright © 2016 George David Clark All rights reserved
from Birmingham Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission