Cursed madness. . .

. . . in my pickup that finally

chirped then started with a roar

like relief, I did not run over

the black pants as I left home.

Don’t run over the black pants.

- Steve Langan, "The Black Pants"

This house is suffering from a Black Pants-tastrophe. A single, solitary, soft, comfy pair of black pants haunts us. A few years back, I remember Steve telling us about the black pants in the street that inspired his black pants series, and how he didn't understand how a pair of pants would end up in the street in the first place, and that confusion led to the creation of 7 separate poems cataloguing a week in the life of the man who watches the black pants. I shared his curiosity - and often do - when I see pants, a shirt, a stray flip-flop or tennis shoe lying in the street or gutter. Today it was a pair of black leather winter gloves on a busy street in Littleton in August, but no matter - every different day unearths some item of clothing where it's not supposed to be and as it sits in its strange surroundings, you can't help but wonder what brought it there and how.

But now, back to my pants. They are maternity pants I bought 5 weeks into my February pregnancy not because I needed them yet, but because they were soft and nice. I wore them when we went to the hospital to discover there was no baby and I wore them as I bled in March and again last week. So the pants must go. Must die. Must be shredded with scissors and tossed from the car, burned like a bad omen in a ScyFy Channel movie, exorcised from this household to take their bad juju to some other place. The pants must be tossed in the street and the pants must be run over.

And if you see them, please don't listen to Steve. Please run over the black pants.