Our new walls,

empty in the dusk,

hang like sheets

before first light

 

 

There is a driven nail

by the stove that could

hold a pan if the walls

stay sturdy. And the

 

old tenants left a mirror in the                                                                          bedroom which looks back

at staring walls with fine cracks

like a museum’s basement vase

 

 

there are brown smears

in the study – chocolate, blood

or shit, we don’t      know what

will happen to us here or what

 

 

will settle on rented walls

or if nothing will settle

at all. We’ve just moved

 

and already we are bitter                                                                                  cranberries in each other’s

mouths, biting about photos,

the place of the table, lay

 

of the bed. The apartment is a City

Hall we cannot fight. So we turn

like lawyers, against each other,

let the walls stare. There is a mirror

 

 

to look into, a nail to hang onto.

Our unopened boxes hide in corners

and closets like beaten children.

And we will take the blood

 

 

off the walls and the dust

from the shelves. We have one

year together in a place that

is empty at dusk and feels like fog

 

 

inside and between us,

and Christ, tomorrow,

we will live here.

 

 

 

 

 

First published in The Golden Hour Book Vol. II, (2009) revised for Tomorrow, We Will Live Here, 2010.