An eerie kind of nostalgia haunts “The Rockland Chateau,” Ariel Dawn‘s prose poem from our Spring 2015 issue.

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ALL NIGHT RHYS PACED THE ROOMS I DYED BLUE. He watched cooking and talk shows, smoked a pipe and played guitar: this growing symphony our days fell through. We made love by glass doors where the wind was a hundred ghosts.

In the morning I broke dirty dishes and swore by the window while our baby drummed a rattle to Mother Goose in stereo. Stars, spoons, animals. Thought we’d live for ages there with the mountains and the towering trees.

There was a madwoman below. She held this broom or tangle of roots that pushed our naked feet as we leapt about with gypsies who lived beside the cemetery. She wrote to the landlord, he handed us the letter. We looked guilty in our trench coats. Rather than read her words like evil eyes, we left those blue rooms.

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ARIEL  DAWN lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Writing is featured or forthcoming in publications such as Ambit, Black & Blue, Paper Swans, minor literature(s), Ink Sweat & Tears, Litro. She spends her time reading Tarot and poetic prose and writing a novella. @ariel__dawn