My brother's graveyard embarrassed any ghosts with diabolical goggles

Or girls with scratchproof gongs.

I have midnight all summer and the old undertaker wrecks the tan barns.

Heirs wrangle in an easy grave.

We ride rock, cast tins at adders and find a one-eyed owl

In dingy goggles who swam through foamy root beer.

A redhead wanted to laugh at pink diseases &endash;

He faced a strange ghost school where thin visions dangle.

Pull me under phantasmic bubbles-I'm a cloudy mess-

But I doggy paddle,I'm a cartoon in plaster.

(d'après la nouvelle de Karen Russell « Haunting Olivia »
parue dans le numéro de The New Yorker
du 13 au 20 juin 2005, page 72)

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