Poetry by Shannon Austin

                   Richard P J Lambert CC



Never Where You Left It
Poltergeists are usually associated with an individual. Hauntings seem to be connected with an area. A house
                                     usually. –Dr. Lesh, Poltergeist


Say she is the house. 

This hallway,
leading to a heart.  

That staircase, 
spiraling to a hive. 

Chairs & memories
never where 

you left them, sliding
over linoleum

tiles forming heads
of sunflowers.

Say house when 
you mean home.

Say she is the marble 
stoop where 

you ate shaved ice & 
watched the sun 

sink below denim
skies. Stained glass

above a doorway
naming its numbers.

A deck, torn down. 
Built from its bones. 

Say there’s no poltergeist
in Poltergeist. 

No, that can’t be right.

​



Werewolf During a Lunar Eclipse

I am religious 
under an empty sky. 

Mountains liquefy into 
vertical plains &

nothing asks for belief. 

Sometimes
faith depends on spite. 

I must remember
who I am in the dark. 

The urgency of myself, 
before other bodies hunger.




​
The Lake

You step in & the thing is
you drown or step out, 
feet webbed under the clear 
clouding of your pedicure; eyes 
blossoming into thousands; worlds 
wakened in your marrow. 
Blink & feathers free-fall down 
your back, swooping into frowns 
& sighs. Words float beyond
your limbic shores, slipping
syllables & guttural urgencies
escaping your neighbor’s terrier.
The ability to lift yourself
out of bed. Transport matter
across distances. Change
the density of an apple. 
Composition of a nail. 
Comprise a saltwater pond. 
Gather the strength to
step in again.

​

Shannon is a writer from Baltimore, MD, with an MFA in poetry at UNLV. Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, Rust + Moth, After the Pause, American Chordata, and elsewhere. 

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