No Screaming while the Bus is in Motion
It’s true that I pulled a wardrobe door
from the firewood pile and painted
a sign: Parker’s Ghost-Hunting Agency
in dripping red letters and nailed it
to the fence alongside our house
where passersby pointed and laughed.
Kids threw stones at our windows.
A boy they called Bad Dog
blacked my left eye for lying.
My parents let the sign
stay up for a week
before my dad burned the fucking thing.
It was around this time I started
to think about death a lot, lying in
my imaginary coffin on the sofa, arms
crossed over my chest, holding my breath.
Quoting Freddy Krueger at the breakfast table.
Mum cried. Dad slapped me and ripped
Vincent Price off my bedroom wall.
Such horrors
before we moved up the hill
next door to a girl with green eyes.
*Bobby Parker was born in 1982. He lives in Kidderminster, England. His most recent collections are Ghost Town Music and Comberton (knivesforksandspoonspress), Digging for Toys and the limited edition chapbook Building Murder with a Smile.