Where the Roof is Leaking

The corridor is dirty from the stale fisherman's boots used for gardening

That haven't been walked in for years.

There might be bugs, we haven't checked the dust trails.

I'm afraid of the deeply brown window above the equally earth-colored couch and the threat of his shutters, closed or opened, no matter.

It's gaze taunts the forest and I fear it like gray wolves with filthy fur

Large enough to brush my neck with the still tips of their wet muzzle.

I cannot sleep on this couch, underneath the threat of this window

For it is the loudest object filling the room;

It interrupts the heaviness of my eyelids and the soothing of my breathing

As I'm crippled by restless sheets.

Upstairs, I dare not go

Somewhere in the wooden drawers of a wardrobe still filled with folded clothes,

Sewn into cherry print pajamas for the ones already asleep and

The broken zippers on the raincoats of little girls that grew up,

A ghost lurks.

A bag of toys used to occupy the corner;

Someone threw it away once it accumulated enough dust.

There was a dried up leaf on the bottom and some pebbles and grains of dirt.

The stove in the kitchen is beyond repair

Heatless from the memories of an empty cabinet in the bathroom

Where peppermint scented shampoo and green hair curlers used to rest.

Meanwhile absence gathers in the corners

I eat my bread at another house, where the carpets are unstained by fear.

It seems,

Not everything has to vanish to be gone.