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| Image source: Neatorama |
It came with the house—
God in the attic
And a stream underground
That made him rheumatic.
Why shouldn't he be
Self-righteous?—the mortgage
Almost paid up & the kids gone
To war and marriage.
It's a good house
Still, he tells himself,
And the heater may hold
Through another winter;
For the heavy ghost
Who creaks on the stairs
And stoops by the window
To peer out at stars.
Richard O'Connell lives in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages, and The Bright Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, National Review, The Paris Review, Margie, Measure, Southern Humanities Reviw, Acumen, The Formalist.