A Poem w/o Ghosts
By Brian Lutz
Go straight past the kitchen.
Go stand by the mirror. Find
the shape there that doesn’t belong.
Spear it w/ your eyes until it becomes
the standing lamp. Do not mistake
its SHADE and glow for halo.
The door was open, that much we know
like the valves of the heart,
like the tunnels that flee the body.
Do not include the word SHADOW in
the poem just b/c the moon left
jet puddles behind the hung coat.
Do not find in the hinge’s
scream the wedding band she
hid from the mourners in her eyes.
The room past the kitchen
was like a room that never had
him in it. Like so many rooms
since his 5th grade heart. Go st-
eal the light behind the curtain b/c
it plays wild like a child. This is not
a HAUNTING. It is a car’s impatient
gaze. At some point, have we not all
thought our eyes headlights that
could cut the dark? Have we not
all conjured, in the ceremony
of loneliness, the dead memories
we hid in television and in books?
We know the door was open.
We know the room was dark.
But the ego still wants to say
it wasn’t this way. We had shut
the door. We had turned on the light.
But, b/c the home moaned we go st-
one still and hope. But this poem, b/c
our minds are wise, has no GHOSTS.
Brian Lutz teaches at Delaware Valley University. In 2003, he was named Poetry Laureate of Bucks County, PA. His poetry has been published in numerous journals including Slate, Potomac Review, Louisville Review, Southern Florida Poetry Journal, Welter, Poetry East, Cider Press Review, Poet Lore, Apple Valley Review and Cimarron Review. Brian lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, two kids and three cats.
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