Why Everyone Can’t See Ghosts

On certain kinds of film, dead girls

are skull-blue, arranged in random patterns. 

Parts of them fold inward, humming notes

that sound like Alabama or Georgia. 

You are reminded of sweet tea and ouija

boards on moonlit nights that smell

of grassfire and oranges.  Some overgrown

dirt roads are known for spooklights,

for burnmarks on the trunks of birch trees. 

This could be explained as energy transfer,

a radio signal gone awry.  Your best bet

is to avoid rooms where the doors close

for no reason.  Whatever else you might do,

don’t change the wallpaper.  Sometimes,

a dress is a planchette, a dark apparition

on a dressmaker’s frame.  Something

that flickers while you aren’t looking.

Bio: Susan Slaviero is the author of two poetry chapbooks: An Introduction to the Archetypes (Shadowbox Press, 2008) and Apocrypha (Dancing Girl Press, 2009).  Her work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in RHINO, Flyway, Goblin Fruit, Artifice Magazine and others.  She designs and co-edits the online lit zine, blossombones.