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1 We live here because the houses are clean, the lawns run right to the street and the streets run away. No one walks here. No one wakens at night or dies. The cars sit open-eyed in the driveways. The lights are on all day. 2 At home forever, she has removed her long foreign names that stained her face like hair. She smiles at you, and you think tears will start from the corners of her mouth. Such a look of tenderness, you look away. She's your sister. Quietly she says, You're a shit, I'll get you for it. 3 Money's the same, he says. He brings it home in white slabs that smell like soap. Throws them down on the table as though he didn't care. The children hear and come in from play glowing like honey and so hungry. 4 With it all we have such a talent for laughing. We can laugh at anything. And we forget no one. She listens to mother on the phone, and he remembers the exact phrasing of a child's sorrows, the oaths taken by bear and tiger never to forgive. 5 On Sunday we're having a party. The children are taken away in a black Dodge, their faces erased from the mirrors. Outside a scum is forming on the afternoon. A car parks but no one gets out. Brother is loading the fridge. Sister is polishing and spraying herself. Today we're having a party. 6 For fun we talk about you. Everything's better for being said. That's a rule. This is going to be some long night, she says. How could you? How could you? For the love of mother, he says. There will be no dawn until the laughing stops. Even the pines are burning in the dark. 7 Why do you love me? he says. Because. Because. You're best to me, she purrs. In the kitchen, in the closets, behind the doors, above the toilets, the calendars are eating it up. One blackened one watches you like another window. Why are you listening? it says. 8 No one says, There's a war. No one says, Children are burning. No one says, Bizniz as usual. But you have to take it all back. You have to hunt through your socks and dirty underwear and crush each word. If you're serious you have to sit in the corner and eat ten new dollars. Eat'em. 9 Whose rifles are brooding in the closet? What are the bolts whispering back and forth? And the pyramids of ammunition, so many hungry mouths to feed. When you hide in bed the revolver under the pillow smiles and shows its teeth. 10 On the last night the children waken from the same dream of leaves burning. Two girls in the dark knowing there are no wolves or bad men in the room. Only electricity on the loose, the television screaming at itself, the dishwasher tearing its heart out. 11 We're going away. The house is too warm. We disconnect the telephone. Bones, cans, broken dolls, bronzed shoes, ground down to face powder. Burn the toilet paper collected in the basement. Take back the bottles. The back stairs are raining glass. Cancel the milk. 12 You may go now, says Cupboard. I won't talk, says Clock. Your bag is black and waiting. How can you leave your house? The stove hunches its shoulders, the kitchen table stares at the sky. You're heaving yourself out in the snow groping toward the front door.
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