“Jacob, Jacob.”

In the yellow house my mother stopped calling me by name.

A mere infant, I’d whine and spit up on her shirt. She didn’t mind.

She’d swaddle me in flannel and hum maritime lullabies as hammers

clanged around us.

My father yanked up floorboards. His crew chipped away plaster.

By end of summer, the house would sit afresh.

But something in the framework awoke.

Mornings, men would find nails pulled out,

varnish scratched, tools askew atop ladders.

My mother later told me how they’d look over their shoulders,

afraid of something they couldn’t put their calloused hands on.

Something lurking like arsenic in faded wallpaper.

One contractor rigged a camcorder in the attic, a “ghost trap” he called it.

Next morning, he checked his camera, walked out, and never came back.

It’s our first apartment together.

My girlfriend tells me there’s a friendly ghost.

One that misplaces glasses of orange juice.

One that waters our hanging plants.

One that re-folds the dish towels.

“Isn’t that nice, Jay?” she says as if our tawny cat

learned to waddle on his haunches and vacuum his own hairballs.

She invites her friend who reads tarot to examine our rooms.

I hold our cat, who squirms at the girl’s omnipresent scent of sage and weed.

After pacing our hallway, the tarot girl concludes there’s indubitably a

presence.

“No wonder.” She side-eyes me and says,

“This one dragged him in.”

Age six, I took to the fields outside my grandfather’s farmhouse,

seeking friends among foundation stones, unearthing cicadas.

“Jake Jr., don’t roam too far.”

My mother sipped coffee across from my grandfather — my father’s father.

Perhaps he once had the posture of his son, but even hunched over,

his shadow loomed large against the doorframe.

The abandoned chicken barn was filled with cans again.

My father once took me along to the redemption center, made forty-

seven bucks.

He let me hold the bills in my hand.

By the road, the neighbor’s kid threw stones at peeling birches.

We swapped ghost stories.

He said his older sister saw

a little girl playing in the halls of the Tideside Tavern.

I had it on good authority from my babysitter

that circus clowns tiptoe along the train tracks.

He said never look up at West End widow’s walks.

Veiled faces will stare back.

I told him my cousin said to never piss behind the Clam Shack.

An old lobsterman will trap your soul in his nets.

He said the worst of all is down Summer Street

in the yellow house.

A haunting so horrible,

no one dares speak its name.

I mentioned my father worked on the renovations.

The kid then claimed he heard his mom call and ran off.

I returned to the farmhouse porch. My grandfather was laughing.

He said my father never had to fire anyone — they all quit.

My mother only smiled.

Years later, I’m driving down Summer Street.

Red lights illuminate the fog.

Paramedics hoist a gurney into the yellow house.

The lady there fell, broke her neck.

“Old house, steep stairs,” a store clerk tells me.

“The people change, but that place stays the same.”

In the mirror, you could accuse me of dating my mother;

but live with my girlfriend, you’ll see I’m dating my father.

She shares his taste in decor of empty bottles.

Hers, on display above cabinets, a habit from her college years.

His, hidden in closets, between linens, gathering dust under cupboards.

Upon moving in together, we agreed she could only keep one.

She stuffed a musty fifth of Jack with burnt-out fairy lights

and left it by the windowsill.

It’s the only thing our cat hasn’t knocked over,

so it sits there.

Some nights, when I come home late from the lumberyard,

when I’m alone in the kitchen,

I can see the bottle glow.

“Jay, come to bed now.”

None of my names feel like my own.

They’re just noises I wake up to.

My grandfather told me there’s a mass grave in his backyard.

A fox in the barn caused the chickens to panic,

throw themselves against walls,

claw at each other.

He and my father buried them behind the farmhouse.

It was time my dad learned to use the backhoe.

He was six.

By end of renovations, the new owners from Boston worried.

They had heard the stories.

Thus hired a medium to perform a cleansing.

The Bostonians and their acquaintances put down their merlot

and held hands as the medium whisked sage

throughout every chamber,

all the way to the attic.

The houseguests giggled

as their cocktails tickled them.

But a hush crept over the party

as the medium’s footsteps creaked

back down

each step.

She said,

“There’s a presence.

He’s up in the linen cupboard.

His name is Jacob.”

My girlfriend has a vision for our apartment.

She plans to revarnish the floorboards,

chip away plaster,

revive the antique wallpaper.

She’s asked me to bring back tools from work.

I apologize because I keep forgetting.

But I don’t.

I was playing by the barn when my mother threw me in the back seat.

I was confused because my father said we’d all eat lunch together.

“He can’t make it,” my mother said.

We drove away. Away from the farmhouse.

Between fields. Past graveyards.

Beyond the yellow house.

It would be years before I saw that place again.

“The dirt is yours,” the executor tells me.

I’m on the phone while my girlfriend grooms our cat.

Hairs on the doormat.

Hairs on the duvet.Hairs on our hand towels.

That cat will sleep anywhere,

except the linen closet.

I find myself walking across fields.

My father stands there,

offers me promised land.

A wall of trees define its borders.

I step towards the edge.

There, I see yellow slats between birches.

Go on, he says, take a look.

A thump from the linen closet.

My girlfriend nudges me awake.

“Jacob, Jacob.”