By Robert Krut
It helps to become wind, move
like air while a sheet of their thousand
misshapen eyes floats beside you.
It helps to make regret a small
paper house, a barroom matchbook
inside, waiting to light.
It helps to climb on top
of the bookcase, just out of the sight
line of their ever-changing faces.
It helps to make memory a cape, drape
it across your shoulders, feel
it curl to ash against skin.
It helps to become water, let
them set their sins on your surface,
sail across and past.
It helps to stand outside the window, see
each exhale themselves, wait
to steal your breath, but
watch me trick ghosts
and leave the house, hollow and free.
Robert Krut is the author of four books: Watch Me Trick Ghosts (Codhill/SUNY Press, 2021), The Now Dark Sky, Setting Us All on Fire (Codhill/SUNY Press, 2019), winner of the Codhill Poetry Award; This is the Ocean (Bona Fide Books, 2013), recipient of the Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Award; and The Spider Sermons (BlazeVox, 2009). His poems have appeared in numerous journals, both in print and online. He teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Writing Program and College of Creative Studies, and lives in Los Angeles. Robert’s website is www.robert-krut.com and instagram is @robertkrut.