Becoming Poltergeist

Promise it won’t happen:
worry’s pass into possession, the dybbuk’s
multiplying.

Promise the impossible.

            Kindled fingers at the sink,
the stovetop, smoke rising off the tested locks

as you speak to rattled doors
            but don’t expect an answer.

Don’t linger when a lover crumples
            at the haunt you’ve left
            the living room:

the twice-cleaned sofa, lysol ooze, new layout everyday:

            home is spotless tomb is afterlife is burial.

Think about the snarl pressed
to your neckbone after mourning
some future death,

            how obsession is a murder
of crows, their curved beaks
            scraping bone. The anxious

pick and scrape of chin,
the chain felt dropping in the throat:

always tongue the panic
to the quick and turn the panic
            into wailing.

Ghost is starched sheet is intrusion
            is never find a resting place.

CD Eskilson is a queer nonbinary poet, editor, and educator. Their work appears or is forthcoming in the Cortland Review, Redivider, Peach Mag, Yes Poetry, and Moonchild Magazine, among others. CD is Poetry Editor of Exposition Review and a reader for Split Lip Magazine. They live in Los Angeles.