Nightmare on Chatham Street

We walk home from the community dinner
in the defunct church, the balmy night

holding the air so thick around its 1970s
architecture; it’s suspended, a Jell-O mold

masterpiece you’d slice into if it weren’t
so pretty. At home we’ll watch an old

slasher film and agree the scariest thing
about Freddy Krueger is how he bends

the boundaries between dream and reality.
At the time, this concept is foreign to me.

Soon, The Cult Leader will have his wife
begin the work of laying blame.

She will invite me for tea.
My excitement at her invitation

remains one of the saddest things:
that I thought I belonged.