HOUSE – Dave McLeod

May 13, 2020

        When you wake up it’s like that one time, in Paris. Outside, in England. Dew drapes your jail cell hips. Puddles of socks. The lightbulb has already attracted storm rats. 

        There’s the sun, behind the clouds and singing mother birds and screaming baby birds.

Apologies if I reorganized the silverware.

        The kitchen makes relapsing look like the best option. 

        Sit down. Now what’s new? Why are the stars pursing their lips? You don’t cut the mustard. Clouds are fatal. They’re not rejoicing, the mother birds, they’re screaming out for lost kin. The blue sky hates you. 

        Let’s close the door. 

        I’ll cum, you eat. 

        The bacon is fishy. It smells like a burning synagogue. Burn it more, you’re past the point of jazz. It tastes like canned cream corn. 

        The coffee mug is a trunk-full of returned mail, unless it drips on your knee, then it’s the stain of your married daughter. 

        Wind hollers through a cracked window or another orifice. Put on the news. The radio makes bird noises. 

        There are sixteen umbrellas, just in case. 

        The silverware is everywhere. In the refrigerator. Reflecting the stars. There’s a butter knife in the toilet, a whisk in the sound hole of your Martin. 

        I’ll reorganize, you bathe. 

        Soap is an out-of-state warrant that you are unaware of. The more you scrub the more ooze comes out. This is when you beg, “Please,” a mere fifty reps. 

        Everything is clean. Rats have taken the mirror to the storm nest. The toothpaste is your eczema cream. Smell matters, so don’t touch your clothes. Edema explodes your dripping wet socks. Come over here, the kitchen looks fantastic. 

        You hear a violin somewhere in the distance, beyond the construction and car horns. That’s your daughter. You should call her. 

        The living room is not a leaving room. You part the odor in the air. Flip the cushions until you find an entire tarot deck. Don’t save receipts or take vitamins because this isn’t a joke. A baby bird in the flower pot is a joke. 

        The house is a virgin. 

        That sunshine is so dark it takes me back to England, to France. Time to get dressed. You are dry and rudderless and the silverware is stacked to reflect the stars. You don’t smell under the dryness in your skin, beneath the heat of light, and you can drive across the ocean.  

        The radio is silent. The coffee is lukewarm. The kitchen is for eating. The clouds are just shapes in the sky. 

        There’s no turning back to last night.  

        Maybe have a lie down, but get up before your beard collapses into spiders.