We all live in haunted houses.

The basements are the most thickly tenanted, Their denizens confined, but at what cost.

Occasionally they burst their bonds, break free, Invade, en masse, the upper flowers, Or sometimes, singly, they slink out, A stale encounter on the stair . . .That's how we know they are there.

Not all the presences are ill disposed; Some gentle memories warm the upper rooms, Soothe and encourage, their frail proximity A something brighter in light.

But by and large it's easier to pretend The space is empty . . . our sole tenement . . .and we Tenants for life, to shape and paint, dispose our furniture As we think fit, each empty room so full of promise.

We strip the walls of peeling paint And roll the bright new colour on . . . but oh!

Before the paint is dry, what lies beneath comes seeping through Tainting . . . irretrievably . . . the new.

To keep the fiction that these haunts are ours, To leave or enter as we choose, we choose the latter, Flee them for the safety of the streets And, when forced back inside, we sometimes cope By reaching for some form of lesser death, The dead, we think, do not torment the dead.