Oil of Sweet Vitriol

Ghosts are here, smells of ether
dark in remembrance, never forgetting -
they float to surface every layer.

We stripped wallpaper in the kitchen
found the hole in the plumbing stack
after six years of pure stench, the diapers,
cat piss, kettle boiling dry on the stove.
Times we used to love, hard on the kitchen
floor while the wallpaper peeled away.
Sweet smells. Sweet nothings cling to me –
before day seeps in beneath night’s door.

Ghosts are here, smells of ether
dark in remembrance, never forgetting -
they float to surface every layer.