Trafford, Pennsylvania.Mid-morning, Christmas Eve.Slate-colored sky, hills, water.A road. A gravel driveway leads to an old house.Brush settles, laps wind.The driveway is overgrown with scrubby grass, jaggerbushes.Trees hang sparsely in the web of winter.Squirrels everywhere.A gray 1992 Nissan Maxima pulls up the drive.Clouded light smatters leaf shadow on windshield.An old house with foxed, exhaust-speckled aluminum siding appears.Two blanketed window face out above a garage filled with errant Cherry Master machines.Dirt walking path leads to entrance at side of the old house.Screen door hangs askew from frame.Son of Ghoul exits the car, walks the path, knocks on the side door.Ghoul answers the door, handgun pointed through the screen, dog runs into woods.Ghoul allows Son of Ghoul to enter after confirming identity.Ghoul: ‘Son of Ghoul, you have returned.’Ghoul and Son of Ghoul enter kitchen.Cans, mud clumps, emptied cartons, prescription bottles, drug paraphernalia litter.Ghoul and Son of Ghoul walk into the living room. Ghoul sits in recliner; Son of Ghoul stands.Stunted light only penetrates the room in lengthening slivers.A stereo, a television, a bag of dog food, a folding card table: pills, foil, lighter.Vinegary egg odor permeates the room.Ghoul: ‘Are you looking for the heroin?’Son of Ghoul: ‘No. It’s Christmas Eve.’An audible emptiness cauterizes the room.The immobility of light touches, leaves every object.Mid-morning passes into early afternoon without event.Ghoul falls asleep, Son of Ghoul exits.
A Place Beyond Shame (excerpt)
Feature Date
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
“[Trafford, Pennsylvania]” from A Place Beyond Shame: by Ed Steck.
Published by Wonder Publishing in 2024.
Copyright © 2024 by Ed Steck.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Ed Steck is a writer and artist living in Pittsburgh, PA. His books include A Place Beyond Shame (Wonder), An Interface for a Fractal Landscape (UDP), The Garden: Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulation (UDP), and others. He is a co-owner of Fungus Books and Records in Pittsburgh.
"Ed Steck's A Place Beyond Shame is a harrowing, original, and endlessly surprising book. Shapeshifting in our hands as we read it, it is as scary and wondrous as the horror films it not only references, but writes into itself. The horror genre has long been a space to explore the terrors of childhood, the way a parent can become a ghoul, to finally confess, in a scream not a whimper, all the secret things we've hidden under the bed. This book reminds me it's in the darkness, not the light, that we finally face ourselves." -- Kate Durbin, Author of Hoarders and E! Entertainment.
Ed Steck is the author of A Place Beyond Shame, An Interface for a Fractal Landscape, The Garden, Mountain Forge Serviceberry Systems, David Horvitz: Rarely Seen Bas Jan Ader Film, and others. His work has been performed and exhibited nationally and internationally, including for the Brooklyn Rail, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Libraire Yvon Lambert, High Desert Test Sites, and more. He is a recipient of grants from the Fund for Poetry, Pittsburgh Greater Arts Council, and the Pittsburgh Foundation. He lives in Pittsburgh.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
