​ Carol's Haunted Treasure Box       you never know what you're going to find!

Alone at the deserted square, or so it seems.

Pale shadows where round tables breathe

            into an 8.00 p.m. silence.

We've come this way before ...

in bunches – Westmount Square heroes

all eyes upon the shrine of happy offerings

            displayed in the window:

            Garlic and dainty teacups, chocolate, incense

the hungry ghost stalking the beauty parlor

feeds upon.

 

Faceless to those

caught in the storm of crashing perfumes,

trapped in the business of unfinished business.

She rises out of the dividing wall

            to blend in among us, unseen.

Her cane, clickety clack, skipping in time

briskly with her embroidered floral dress

of white lace swerving corners.

The place she seeks lives in her mind.

Fragments of her 1920's neighborhood

            lost in a bitter hunt down

            pathways of some pungent alley

after a boxed, decrepit body

callously torn from her in death.

 

Hungry ghost stalking the funeral parlor

            of yesteryear

pulls back the curtain exposing the living,

the purple fairies of her flesh intrigued

by vibrant energy taking on human form.

            Alien invaders!

            Far traveled and all-knowing.

They need not know it all ...

need never know about

The trusting men she cheated

Small children she slapped

Weak ones she trampled on

The foul gossip she created 

            in her lifetime.

 

Old lady hungers for rest in her coffin.

Her pillaging demeanor pressed upon us,

she navigates around the shifting interface

of ancient trees and modern concourse

            in desperate search for the end.

Round and about the guarded walkways

into the belly of the idle square at night,

there, by the slender gate her head pops in,

her rancid charm turning a wide-eyed grin

            above my shoulder. Frigid.

 

So real's the reek of breath, of rotten teeth,

as her face lures you into a realm of deceit

that for one brief, unguarded moment

             wound up by her expired clock

             the heroes at my table call to earth! 

and the blur of a phantom escapes her dress.  

Barely hanging by a thread now,

dragging the shadow of her cane

she scuffles off into the far midst

still clenching her teeth for a clue.

                                                         

Then right before your eyes, hungry ghost

stumbles–

up and dissolves into a shroud of dim odor,

pops and deflates like a balloon spurting air
zapping her dumbfounded onlookers.

             Have you seen her? Did you miss it?

She will be back again tomorrow. Forever.