The Haunt

there     in the pane of the back window
you see its face     bug-eyed     tongue-bit
that would scream if it could move itself out of the glass
it’s been stuck there     you think
probably for decades now  but it’s only now
early middle age     that you see it
its implied breath takes the real breath out of you
but it doesn’t really seem to breathe
	it’s a child’s face     the face
	that was yours when you lived in a house
	with a backyard window like this one
	you keep imagining the rhythms of its breath
	or its hands     or life below the top of its shoulders
	and soon it becomes familiar     then flies away

from Amateur Mythology (2017)