“The Face in the Attic, the Voices in the Walls” by David C. Kopaska-Merkel & Kendall Evans

the face in the attic
I had no room for it downstairs
no matter what it said
didn’t matter anyway
when my brother saw it
he would toss it
in the dumpster
with my bones

I pace the floor
from room to room

the face follows me sometimes
at night it sneaks out
converses with owls
my brother stops by
every few years
on his motorcycle
but I don’t like the way
he rearranges my bones

owls nesting in the eaves
faces in the attic mirrors
spiders in their webs
festooned in dark corners
voices muttering in the walls
my brother, on his rare visits
and I, making my silent rounds
we are all of us thoughts
in the mind of the house
and the house is quite insane

David C. Kopaska-Merkel, a semi-retired geologist, won the 2006 Rhysling award for best long poem (for a collaboration with Kendall Evans), and edits Dreams & Nightmares magazine (since 1986). He has edited Star*line, an issue of Eye to the Telescope, and several Rhysling anthologies, co-edited the 2023 Dwarf Stars anthology, has served as SFPA president, and is an SFPA Grandmaster. His poems have been published in Asimov’s, Analog, Strange Horizons, and more than 200 other venues. His latest collection, Some Disassembly Required, winner of the Elgin award, was published by Diminuendo Press in 2022. Blog: dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com Kendall Evans‘ stories and poems have appeared in nearly all the major science fiction and fantasy magazines, including Asimov’s SF, Analog, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Weirdbook, Mythic Delirium, Dreams & Nightmares, Space & Time, Nebula Award Showcase (2012), and many others. He is the author of the novel The Rings of Ganymede and a number of chapbooks, including Poetry Red-Shifted in the Eyes of a Dragon; Separate Destinations and The Tin Men (both written in collaboration with David C. Kopaska-Merkel); I Feel So Schizophrenic, the Starship’s AftBrain Said; and In Deepspace Shadows.