Caroline Picker

Goosebumps

It’s the crunched spines of oak leaves eddying, 
how a plastic bag turns to something filthy

with water and wind. When I ghost myself, 
the brown stream comes hemorrhaging 

through sidewalk uplift and weedy culverts.
I must count every pavement crack.

I walk home towards imagined comfort. 
The TV is the only light on,

blue window flicker like wires axed 
with a blunt blade. 

What I know to fear is the body thief, 
the creaking swings,

the babysitter who closed the door.
In the end, the ghosts are the ones minding me, 

the ghosts are the ones who make sure 
I make it through all along.

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Caroline Picker (she/her) is a queer parent, poet, and movement worker striving for collective liberation in Southern Vermont on Abenaki land. Her writing has appeared in Ballast Journal, Subnivean, West Trade Review, Pensive, and Literary Mama, among other publications.