13 Ghosts
Ace Boggess
William Castle Productions, 1960
classic haunted house plus
a treasure trove of cash to find
all the guests are wicked ghouls
the hanged man
the cleaver fiend
the headless tamer &
his lion (okay
a joke—I get it) &
somewhere between
the reaping & bountiful harvest
is a child’s fascination
I remember
when I was that age
I thought
every place I lived
would be like this
Ace Boggess is author of three books of poetry, most recently Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017), and the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.