The backyard ghosts
are whispering in the wind again.

Lit by a distant light,
trees fling their shadows
shaking on the hardwood floors.

Flash of memory, lightning:
Mom with the rifle.
“Don’t shoot daddy.”
My father’s t-shirt, crimson blood
smeared on white
after he used the stock as a club.

Shake off the past.
Now, something moves upstairs.
My mother called it the house settling.

Settling what?

The floorboards creaking and moaning
like the rain-haunted planks
of a Flying Dutchman flooding me
with her own violent storms