HAUNTED

Is it haunted?

They’d always ask

with the voracious interest

of one living somewhere else.

It really isn’t.

was what I’d always say.

But all of that has changed.

I’ve invited my own ghosts in.

I must have,

because there really were none

when we moved into the old house

that spring.

Whether banished by a prior owner

or never choosing to stay,

I just cannot say.

But one by one they came,

my own invitation in hand.

First it was my father—

come to comfort his daughter's cry:

An owl in my own backyard,

and on the porch at dawn.

Then came a poke in the night,

a flicker of the light.

My brother stops by

mostly after I’m already in bed

(but sends a crow over when I’m up

and heading out the door).

I open the kitchen window,

the screen long ago fell off.

Cool fall breeze rushes in

from the West

and I swear,

I feel my ancestors' love on the air.

Come in,

I just put on a pot of beans.

The hummingbird,

drinking from the salvia

looks up.

That’s my mother’s bird.

And I know it will return each year,

long after she’s gone.

© 2026 Carla Tanguay White