pot of brown water on the dresser top.
lidded, the fact of it
as having been positioned there
insensibly
the interloper
one of us in sleepwalk
might have got away with, if not
for necessities of selling everything
at the commencement
of a moving cycle. aged like whisky
stains the floorboards, memorandum
dating back nineteen-oh-five
to when the walls went up, since then
the faces shuffling around them
oftentimes at night,
I will admit I changed the pillowcases
in the cryptic bedroom
though I don’t remember.
ghosts come on with sudden credibility
to squat in attic spaces,
rattle fixtures,
place a pot of water
on the dresser top
then fade away again,
or it was placed preemptively, before
the fact
and all this means is there was once
more people living here.