Subdivision
Under the mattress
in the guestroom, I couldn’t find the word
for “enough”. The word for
“born animal”.
The what kind, the what kind. Police whispering, entering
the kitchen, slipping out my bedroom
window.
The crackle of deer picking through bottles in the backyard.
A room rustling with my party
dresses, the hems
undone, dangling: a roomful of staircases, colored like a dog’s
mouth. The weather pulled from my
brother’s ear,
the rain in a soup bowl, in a tureen. The tea kettle always pacing,
turning. Without warning, a stove,
a hidden panel
full of lettuce, full of sugar packets. My boots lined up by the door,
their tongues torn. The drawer full of parts,
full of nail
parings and teeth. “Someone touches a part, they control your heart!”
Someone shouting, someone muffling
a shout.
Singing by the fireplace at breakfast, but not after dusk. All
the frosting tastes of furniture polish, all the curtains
taste like tires,
or the bottom of his foot. Trees bowing until they break, the shards
weeping yellow, sharp as the wrong word
for “electricity”,
for “please,” not, “pleases”. Miniature steam rollers made of metal,
used for discipline. Someone
losing
his footing every night around the half-full pool,
no one startled by the splash.
down the rabbit hole 