A Haunting

Five.
What do you remember?
School, reception class:
sawdust and vomit.

House
26, Kapellerlaan.
I kept pfennig coins
in apothecary’s drawers

and
spent them across the
border with my father
in the families’ shop.

So
many dark religious
paintings, so many
crucifixed walls

in
Protestant Holland
watched over me,
a frightened boy.

Foul
midnight smells brought on
by nightmares, sheets
dark-stained and changed.

Voice
behind the shower door:
whispers; Flemish? Dutch?
Yellow rivulet in

the
spiralling water flowing
out on the third floor
26, Kappellerlaan.