ghost town

i don’t walk in a straight line.
there’s no need for that now, but
don’t you miss it— the car exhaust,
the skidding feet, truck tires
leaving tracks through the autumn leaves?
how laughter echoes on concrete,
lawnmowers growling in august heat.
all these stains and signatures draped
careless across the summer-slick sidewalk.

now, there are only
my exhalations,
my blood-pulse pounding,
my footfalls twirling,
serpentine,
that hammering of feet on stale cement.
i weave past the wreckage of houses
where i once sank into threadbare sofas,
trading oxygen, running my fingers
      across the spots in the walls.
once, we were statues, posed in each other’s doorways,
pearly and picturesque. now i am a tumbleweed,
   rising in the wind while you sit hunched
       in your basement, parting the curtains,
          studying the dust. are you hungry enough
to look out the window and bare your teeth?

there’s hardly any sunlight left. this used to be
the beginning— the jangle of keys, the slam of
        car doors, the whoosh of air through the sunroof.
  tonight, i climb the hill by your house and holler
your name, cut my teeth on consonants. it’s a
heavenly howl—
     windows shatter, and the glass lays scattered
for weeks.

Zoe Cunniffe is a poet and singer-songwriter from Washington, DC. She has previously been published in literary journals such as Blue Marble Review, New Reader Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, and Small Leaf Press. Zoe can be found on Instagram at @there.are.stillbeautifulthings.