By Day and by Night

a poem for halloween

what chill cuts the upper hall

brings to mind the horror of this house,

for in the room i reside,

a heat contained burns year ‘round and recalls a distant tragedy;

of a soul condemned,

who fashioned their own exit,

and takes in form an aura of green,

of celestial hues stalking the misshapen walls;

alive by shadows and heard by windfall,

what creaks and caws,

and watches at the foot of the stairs,

so when i climb them and feel a brush on my neck,

and a sense i’m being followed,

i come to long for a ghost in white linen.