Our Ghost Town

Jason Heroux




Our ghost town was like all the others. Empty birdcages broke into song every morning. Someone’s basketball bounced by itself back and forth across the court. On his deathbed the weatherman whispered to me that it looked like rain, but the sky was clear. Sometimes late at night it got so quiet you could hear your own ears. I found my ghost hiding in the shed, naked, and shivering. It hadn’t eaten for days. I explained everything was okay but it didn’t believe me. The next day it was gone. I disappeared soon after. What sort of world is this? Nothing is safe, and yet somehow even now I still feel everything is fine.






Jason Heroux is currently the Poet Laureate for the city of Kingston, Ontario. His most recent book is the novel Amusement Park of Constant Sorrow (Mansfield Press, 2018).