Keeping House
March 11 2025
The pot boils over
boils dry.
Lights burn day and night
burn out.
Food rots or mummifies
mice eat the rest.
Dust falls, as it's always done
until the stagnant air is emptied out.
Imagine light slanting in
distilled of all impurity,
no tiny motes
dancing in its beams.
Or is dust inexhaustible
even in this closed space,
there
wherever you look?
Settling
incrementally
in a thick even layer
and sitting undisturbed.
The furnace cycles on-and-off
until its fuel runs out.
Then the house sits
getting colder bit by bit
until the pipes crack
and walls sag with mould.
Which would have happened
had I not been home
attending to its needs;
holding it up
like a load bearing beam
made of sturdy oak
from age-old trees.
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