Spookhouse by Brian Fanelli

What lurks behind the rusty door?
A dusty book shelf lined with yellow-paged novels,
A cockroach crawling on the shelves,
Near little stray cat footprints.

A hammer with a chipped handle sits in shadows,
Near the blackened chisel and broken ratchet,
Down the cellar reeking of oil and dust.
No man with bloody hands and a devil grin lingers there.

Yellow eyes of the bony cat
Peer through the cracked windows.
No silver-haired woman looks outside,
Moaning for a lost lover.
There is only a house with peeling paint,
Doors hanging from hinges,
Floorboards creaking from age,
Not from someone’s footsteps.



Brian Fanelli, 21, is a free-lance writer living in West Chester, Pennsylvania.