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the party by hil hoover

it’s fun at first, living in this haunted house. 


you come home to a party at night: 

all illegal liquor and old-fashioned lingo.

you make yourself popular with the ghosts 

by playing a tune your great-grandfather 

used to lapse back into singing 

when he started to lose his mind, 

the piano he left you humming in a manner

it hasn’t since his fingers went still. 


he isn’t here: tied to some other place perhaps, 

or moved on into the light after all, the uncertain 

mercy of the afterlife being a fickle thing like that. 


these ghosts are all young folks, done to dust so 

many years ago, one big rolling party 

that hums and sways into eternity with a brightness 

that hurts your eyes if you look at it too long: 

and yet there’s a frantic fervor to these spirits 

that makes it hard to look away, as if 

they need you to see. 


It’s not the music that gets you in the end, 

not the dancing, not the constant flow 

of drinks, not even the raucous laughter and 

conversations. it’s the fact that everything 

plays out the same no matter what you do: 

the young couple who have a fight in the 

corner are going to have that argument 

- I know all about your floozy! - 

the young men who look at each other 

longingly but never speak are going to 

continue not speaking 

- the tragedy! - 

the friends who come to blows are going to 

punch each other out

 - over money neither needs now! - 

and nothing will ever be resolved or begin anew 


because the music never changes 

and the liquor flows and flows 

and the dancers 

and the party 

and the party 

and the party 

remain. 


you burn the house down

and hope.

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