The walls of the house have become the world around,
part of this world & a world of its own & everything
an excuse to do nothing. We’ve become inconceivable
to each other. Our words have taken root the way moths fly
like they’re broken. We’re beyond becoming. That we’ve filled
the house with phantoms & called up monsters from the deep.
That the world rests on the backs of saints. That it’s my hair
that’s full of secrets, a wild, sweet rippling, all dressed up
& smelling of strangers. That I’ve kept my pretty head low.
Melodies our ammunition. That these are the fables we
reconstruct as the birds sing about murder. That I’ve walked
on knives to get here & now my feet are maps. That you’ve made
a place to sleep inside my ear. It was sunrise & my feet got wet
in the dew. Waiting for anything is its own kind of fever,
an after burn or afterglow, or undoing, or slow road to ruin.