She Walks In

the older folk,

they say it sank.

they say it burned.

they say it bled through all nine mouths.

but the house wouldn’t die.

-

it just would be.

windowless, lungless—wet with memory.

its porch rotted soft as lips,

its bones filled with whisper-roots.

it knows how to creak like begging.

-

no one lives there.

no one should.

not that close to the sink

where worms pray louder than men

and things burrow up just to be seen.

-

but Jessi Belle walks in.

Jessi Belle returns.

not at dusk like the others, no—

she comes bare and brazen

when the sun’s too high to forgive.

-

she walks the flooded planks

dripping, expectant, raw as the first sin.

her hair slaps her back like a wet hymn

and her cunt doesn’t flinch at the cold.

-

Ms. Higgins says she goes to see

the Father of Worms—

says he lives in the root cellar

wrapped in silence and skin.

but Higgins has been wrong before.

been addled too long.

left behind,

unable to die.

-

still.

when Jessi enters,

even the flies hold their breath.

and frogs slip backwards into mud

like they’re scared of being witnesses.

-

she walks in

Jessi Belle walks in

Jessi Belle walks in

like the house is hers

like the house is inside her

like the door has been waiting to open with her.

-

and she moans

loud

long

not like a girl in heat

but like something remembering how to hunger.

-

and when Tom Ratter’s boy followed her—

drunk and cocky and so, so young—

that was the last

anyone saw of him.

left only his belt in the reeds

and a handful of golden teeth no one claimed.

-

they asked Jessi what happened.

she licked her lips.

she laughed like a song that used to be human.

and someone—maybe Higgins, maybe not—

swore her mouth was full of little red tongues

that wriggled when she smiled.

-

The marsh doesn’t bury its dead.

it recycles.

so best you bow your head,

if you see a naked girl

walking into the house that wouldn’t die.

clench your thighs,

and stay where the land is still dry.

-

because if she beckons,

and the house answers—

you’ll know the old stories were true.

-

and if the Father of Worms opens the door for you...

you might get to understand

what, the older folk say,

People like poor Higgins do.

.