The House Beyond the Swamp

We loathed them with the quiet
of rot—
the family who squatted
between our house and the bog,
that snarl of vines like veins
burst beneath skin,
moss slick as tongues,
damp as breath,
earth always gulping.
They said keep out
but the wind said come closer—
and we obeyed.

Our sticks became sabers,
our matches, sermons.
We offered up burnt plastic
and squirrel skulls
three pennies pressed into a rotten log
in the shape of a triangle—
a tithe to whatever
watched from beneath the kudzu.

And when we learned the shape
of wanting,
it was thigh against thigh,
on mildew-soft cushions
that oozed when pressed.

A creek—or something like it—
coiled behind their sagging shed.
Its breath stank of metal and things
that still pulsed.
We found teeth in it once.
Another time, a doll
with her scalp scorched off,
eyes gouged clean,
still grinning.

In winter, the filth stiffened
into a glassy skin.
We walked it barefoot sometimes,
for the sting,
for the myth and magic,
for proof that something could still hurt.

When the ice cracked,
we sank like grudges.
Rose like oaths.
The feathers of our coats
clung like spores,
glistening.

Our father, always wheezing,
blamed the power plant—
said the creek’s clogged throat
the way it refused to flow
like it had once,
long ago,
before we were born
into this sinking house.

He said it used to run
clean to the sea.
We wondered if he meant
blood, not water.
We didn’t press.

Something in the walls listened,
shifted
when we spoke of leaving.
Something in the walls
wanted us to stay.