walking home from middle school
every winter afternoon
past that house down by the Mill Creek
it was haunted sad and ruined
me and little Mike McManus
we were novices in crime
we were cut we were blood brothers
he was rhythm I was rhyme
we used to talk about the perfect murder
we used to talk about true love
and every other devilish candleflame
we could pass our hands above
and that house we’d heard was haunted
had an unlocked cellar door
sometimes we’d sneak down for the thrill of it
let the blood rush to our ears and roar
in that great big cellar silence
in those afternoons of youth
through those grey West Virginia winters
we were flirting with the truth
we were way too young to understand
some of the spooky stories we heard
but me and Mike we had a bargain
we never put it into words
but we swore it and we wore it
like a jacket from our gang
we were the only ones who joined it
we were the only ones could hang
then when we made it up to 12th grade
and they tore that old house down
and them ghosts without a place to haunt
went packing out of town
it just seemed to be a passing
of some season in our lives
then we drifted out into that world
we had so much despised
or maybe it just scared us
our new grown-up desire
we knew we were both getting hungry
we knew we were both for hire
like everybody else is
in this world where nothing’s free
but it seems like some things used to be
and here’s one last glass I’ll raise
to little Mike and me
and that cellar
in that haunted house
down by the Mill Creek
July 1995
Douglas, GA