Banshee

The cry came before the face. A banshee stood in the Irish dark, pale hair, a keening that marked a death not yet in the house. People put a hand to the door and did not open it. They kept a banshee gift in the ear, the sound that would not be argued with. It returns in banshee playing cards that thin the room, in a banshee notebook with one line written and the rest blank, in a banshee postcard of the hair and the open mouth. The night goes on. The cry does not.