“and the walls bore witness to all that withered the mind lists like a house in winter.”
- Poet
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the floorboards offer only joist only the give the soft jawed stud in the hall plaster molts white flecks like the chicken did last winter the tv spits a grey electric grit a static stuck rattling the cul de sac the deadbolt evening click i have swept the dead from the wires the cold clot they leave in the pipes the notice said final in red it promised a merciful eviction in a neighborhood of taped up windows the crabgrass a green fire where the dog used to squat wait inside the mind a leaden bell a pendulum already swinging the weight of crown molding and sweat a siyn nap pops like a fuse when the heart stops just the thermostat clicking off the house already a frozen meat locker of blue bellies as the soul snags on the splintered jamb by the side door while the neighbors count the moving boxes i kept thinking about the fridge light how long it could burn over the fatback sweating into a cold yellow brine the stars rock salt in a split lip the factory a pulled socket wired to nothing bleeding soot porch light a clotted throat of toasted wings the smoke alarm battery dead all that evisceration funnels us back to the kitchen we sit in the kitchen thumbing the unpaid slips my fingers gelid sticking to the paper the fridge drones on borrowed power just caught in the clock slow gears a germ in the cogs the sink drips the soul stays low in the wiring behind the lath holding on until the breaker snaps
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