rattle - 10.25.22
the earth quakes.
the bones of the old house rattle like a cough stuck between ribs. like a heat shield dragging on asphalt. a tremor in the hand.
my foot misses a step, asks a question of the floor. I keep not finding the ground where it means to be. where I mean it to be.
our creaking wood boards are hollow with termites. live oak and cherrywood dusted with shit and sand, crumbling like cliffs into the ocean. time passes in circles. the teacups clatter in the cupboard. the handprint on my back becomes an interview with lonely space.
the dogs bark. my coffee goes cold. your jacket is pulled from the hook next to mine. your daily pace is outweighed, inverted. a constellation of change. cataloging each crack in the foundation with too much sleep and a hungry heart. blindfolded at the edge of the canyon, one foot off the rock.
I brace myself in the door frame. what to make of it? music in the far distance that I cannot hear. paint crusted between bristles, interrupted expectation. the colors bleed from my wrists and ankles, antithesis of my chosen hues. abstraction where realism is begged for.
I am lost. the house is empty. the earthquake chased the finches from the trees. my map, my blueprints, my schema, crumbling like the hardwood. sinking into groundwater. the quicksand of uncertain hopes. fortunes lost between the floorboards, the sets incomplete.
the floor answers the question: there is no ending. no middle. no beginning. you must cope with freefall, with the burden of holding the end of the tightrope, with the steel that screeches and bends when the earth's lungs give out. you are the finch striking the window, wings in wretched ruin.
what to make of it?




















