"Indwelling"

Click here to listen to Teresa Cader read this poem.


In the crazy guest who saws off the chair legs,

In the wind hissing beneath the door sweep,
A tribe of mice squeezing through pocket doors,

In the pants pockets where the evidence remains,
Those filaments of wool in the moth-eaten rug,

In the masquerade of motion that sets off the alarm,
The alarm that arrives via airwaves at dinnertime,

In the worm that opens e-mail, eats the address book,
The virus propagating on the unsuspecting screen,

In the cell that missed a loop of timing and purpose,
The unpaid tax surfacing like a submarine,

In the bloody stool and saliva, the mucus and membrane,
Slits of sunlight discoloring blue curtains,

In the broken gutter where ice dams pry up the roof,
A crack in the skylight where mold sifts down,

In the contractor hammering windmills on shingles,
The carpenter bees burrowing barracks into the attic,

In the funneling, the grating, the sagging, the gravitating—
O icon of muck and filch; there is nothing you won't

Divide, opening trap doors we forget to close.

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