Devil

The town is still the same save a few swapped-out bars.
Seasons go quicker now, each a thick magazine of clothes.
Or a catalog, more like, of stuff I don’t have. On work days
I drive by your house in the paper route dark. I still look with my
boiled-over eyes. Your mother is a saint. Your sister a king. Your whole planet
is a charm on a chain on a hard-dying star.

Why are you wild in that way. Not in a good
way but empty, with rot. Thin soul. Jitterbug hands.
Someday I’ll make you answer for it. Or if not me someone else.
Or if not someone else then I guess just keep on tearing up the rugs in our homes.
We might even join you. Swing from ceiling pipes. Break radiators and frozen
soup in the cold. Sing up. To Jesus or whatever. Sing down to hell.

At the end of it we’ll throw our plates. At the end
we’ll rip the locks. But first there’s something to do,
to take care of. And not just some thing
either but maybe a lot of things. Or just
the one thing with many steps to it. Many parts.

***

Linda Wojtowick hails from Montana and has lived in Portland, Oregon for over 20 years. She is co-creator and writer of the podcast The Ghosts on This Road, and can also be heard on the fiction podcasts Knifepoint Horror, Tag Till We’re Dead, and Campfire Radio Theater. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and her poetry collection The Hosted is available on Amazon.