My toddler keeps running around, screaming about ghosts,

how they’re upstairs, downstairs, everywhere:

everything drifting out there in the darkness.

 

We’re watching his favorite episode tonight,

where Tina starts dating a goose named Bruce,

but my toddler keeps running around, screaming about ghosts,

 

defeating the purpose of putting on the show

that helps him, sometimes, fall asleep. Either this or the car:

he drifts to sleep out there in the darkness.

 

We have a light that flickers on & off, above the stairs,

the landing before the top floor of the townhouse.

My toddler keeps running around. Is there a ghost

 

in the ceiling? More Brucey goose, he says,

as the episode fades to credits. I stare out the window,

the after-drift of a rainstorm, out there in the darkness.

 

Next, my wife puts on the episode she calls the cheese one.

My son finally says he is ready for bed:

he is done, for now, running around & screaming of the ghosts

that, like everything, drift out here in the darkness.