Notice how the light washes this building blond, how the brickwork neatly frames each closed window. The appointed rooms, elegant in their simplicity, seem emptied, except for these ghosts on weightless feet who hover above the blooms. Rare orchids, with purple thoughts, perfume in green pots while fronds feather no Mediterranean sky. A shade of blue splashes everything pale as pool tiles; a kind of violence lives here, a hush. Rooms float in brine like formaldehyde fetuses with one open eye. Mirrors flash. The owner is gone. The Siamese cat sharpens her claws.
Jenene Ravesloot
First Published in Sad Girl Review, 2018