Wednesday in Therapy
The bearskin rug that bit visitors was always my favorite. At Christmastime, our butler stood on the rooftop and doused carolers in boiling pitch. The mansion had trap doors, maim-you-if-you-misjudge-the-exit secret passageways. Carnivorous vines as silent as boa constrictors. A graveyard of gruesome statuary. The pits of quicksand. My father would throw an épée at anything that moved. Mother meticulously decapitated all the roses. Grandmama was always entertaining some demon or another. There were corpses in the closets, beasts with teeth in the bottoms of dresser drawers. No welcome mat, in other words. Yet still the villains got in.
They said we were safe
and flung open the front doors
to ravening wolves
Originally published in Moonchild Magazine.
[Image description: a color photograph of the Addams family mansion.]
