Black ***** cats
dark thoughts, true and unkind
always seem to find their way back home.

It's ugly,
like all those crooked stars in the sky.

Pain swells up and grows
like poison ivy in the cracks
of broken vertebrae, wooden chairs,
and in the faces of grieving mothers.
In the shadows, distant banshees wail
strident vipers dangle like ropes
hissing and enticing
slithering nooses around the necks
of teenagers.