Everyday Hauntings
I see an open-mouthed man in her pupil. He is pressed to the glass.
He looks lost and confused, and every time her eyes close for a blinking
second I hope he won’t be there, but those yellowed teeth and frenzied
laugh lines stick like window clings. I start seeing him in others’ eyes, too,
my mother, sister, paper boy as I hand him an envelope for the daily trek
up my hill. The man makes tired yawns sometimes, his hair haphazard
and sleeping robe open to age-spotted chest. I find the man in my cereal spoon,
flipped upside down but still looking haggard. It is when he paints the mirror glass
that I shatter it with a wayward golf club and stop going to work.
Nicole Pero is a senior at SUNY Geneseo who loves sleeping in, painting her nails, and making questionable financial decisions. She wants to make it to the ripe old age of eighty so she can crochet on her front porch, and screech at anyone within a few yards.