A row of historical houses:

simple clapboard confections

oozing a fragrance of ghost.

​

You want to pry them open

and parse them room by room from

the perspective of a deity.

​

An artist in three dimensions

could create exploded views,

but you don't want a rendering

​

in computer graphics, you want

to lift the actual lids and peer

with the power of a cyclops

​

into a stew of people rich

enough to maintain these large,

boxy, underrated spaces.

​

You imagine that their sex lives

assume the Puritan fervor

you caught for a moment of two

​

in the angst of adolescence.

Let's discuss this over latte

in the café where those same

​

rich citizens sit and gossip

in the same bright tones you've heard

in Boston, Paris, and Rio.

​

Let's avoid rehashing those nights

in old cars parked by the river.

Let's forget the string of murders

​

that tilted the village on edge

and ended without an arrest.

Maybe that killer, deep in age,

​

lives in one of these houses,

nursed by his middle-aged children

grown wealthy through investments.

​

No wonder you want to peer into

their rooms from a steep angle

that would reveal their psychic content.

​

No wonder your curiosity

has blossomed like a circus tent.

But I don't want to incite you.

​

Forget I brought up those murders

of half a century ago. The sweet

odor of ghost excludes violence—

​

everyone historic having died

in bed, smirking over lifetimes

spent more carefully than ours.