Arlington House: At Once

The chambers of the house
swell and empty
all that is left

The occasion of bodies passing through
rooms that meekly brighten
sidle dim

Corners batting sound of our
feet the crow
the second hand

What the wood tells I can only guess
carve an ear of oak
and listen

Trace the seams of boarded doors
tepid temperature of May
at once

My hands are pink lenders of heat
the room is warm
and cold again

Hall: Late Afternoon

light filter shade
line deeper shadow
fade deeper dim
hue after noon
shoes already on
clip knocking notes
cross-hatched light
east south north
west windows bare
(evening coming round
shade dim shadow
dark past finger
shoes already off
hush over boards)

Kitchen: Vegetables

My brief days count up to one hundred
and no further: I am whole vegetables,
sprouted beans, buffed skin hiding seed

There is no cooking here, the day is
just so: sun setting shadows,
birds no longer singing, chirp automaton

Like the clock ticking
on the shelf that holds the dishes,
the dishes that will never be used

My tongue makes spit and begs tomorrow
thoughts already with the fall
even while the lilacs bloom: profuse

Intoxicant. One hundred day is fleshy purple
(hunger rubs a hidden bruise)
I am a table full of vegetables

The sun has hit the leaves
birds say what is necessary
clock ticks a going

Tongue licks the lips of vegetables
it is as it is
as it is

Dining Room: Echo

My lone breath, inhale
rustled cloth in turning to the window
spoon in the bowl drips into soup
scuff of soles in movement
a box of sounds in emptiness
repeating same into themselves

I tell myself there is still time to change

Ceiling: Rain Storm

It rains on the roof: shingles, tar paper,
particle board, rafter. Bulbs of water,
brief at the slat: swell, gloss,
drop the second time since
cloud-like, unbecoming, they climbed
on hot elevating air to be made visible
in marriage to dust: to drift in threads, wisps,
bulbous happy pilings
from one point in time, to the next.
The front is always coming: press, temper,
rove the undulations of landscape:
form of droplet out of nimbus form.
It rains from the roof: gravity,
points of separation to ease through.
Drinkers: wood floor, damp air, surface dust.

Bathroom: Claw-foot

steam lifts up slick porcelain walls
off the dust-specked surface of water
bending every colour through such tiny prisms
into the general air of the one room yet to be cleaned

sleepy in the bath I fade out of solid state
dreaming a hundred rainbows all possible
you and you all rise as high
as the happy cool of the room allows

up through the hoop that hold the curtain
up wrap the bulb that makes day of night
up to the poorly painted ceiling
and there

like a balloon meets a pin
a drop again
to wake in the liquid gone tepid

Bedroom: White-wash

Around the room various white cloth and wood,
paper, ceramic, suitcase - eyes pause long minutes

while marks appear. A new alphabet of knick and smudge
recorded in a dictionary of accidental bodies

in collision with furniture. All white surfaces
scuff with association.

Inside, tightened to a fist, my heart
pounds slow regulars against my inside bones

leaving marks of its own: finger print,
bruised plaster, the hole where the clock once hung.

From what I can decipher
everything is accounted for.

Loft: Wood Stove

Siren traffic crow
sound through the chimney to the open stove
where the coal tinkles like chips of glass

Soot leaves black marks
my arms reach into the dark mouth again
rearrange, empty a little breath from my lungs

Flames whoosh, the street creeps
down the black stove pipe
sounds small as a figurine screaming

Tinkle wail the flame dies out
soot rubs off ash turns white
a little water takes the marks off