EMPTY DWELLING
By Shadow Kat
Through rust-hinged, antique basement door,
Come drilling eyes.
Affixed, they nail me to the floor,
Till my heart dies.
Latch left, agape, light, gaunt and thin.
Diode decloaking: Dust-scope, drift strip, defuse dead skin.
Burglarized.
A wrench pries jaw; rusted frame,
Bone ratcheting.
Tache noire sclera through glass pane.
Heavy…heaving.
Frozen pipes: stiff limbs in rigor.
Hammering, squeak.
Gurney wheeling a draped figure.
Skin peel, paint stripped.
A skeletal stained stairwell, steep.
Finial fists,
Ajar, a jest; still feigning sleep.
Receding beds;
Ten whittling spindle fingers.
Default, decay…
Some scented desiccant lingers.
Fumigation:
A tenting sheath; a body bag
Unzips zip teeth.
Y incision, ribs sawn; a crag—
Chest cavity.
Wood-rot distends the cupboard doors.
Abdomen bloats.
Stuck runners; mortuary drawers.
Foreclosed forceps.
Clogged, clotted drains and congealed traps;
Putrefaction.
The adipose, leaking grave wax.
Swift eviction.
A vice-held lease; skull coronet.
Chisel, mallet.
Sapient shell, soul silhouette.
Tenancy ends.
Yawning potholes, a gaping maw.
Casket filler.
All stitched up, plastered over gore.
Saprophyte’s lodge: A cannibalism, condemned.
The bulldozers—
A surveyor eyes them as they rend.
Sheer homelessness.
What harrowed, hollow husks we are:
An empty lot,
Salvaged junk, formaldehyde jar.