14 March 2006 | Vol. 6, No. 1

Though

by KRISTI MAXWELL

The little mouse has claimed the kitchen, spread out like a rind,

and under the cedar beam is you: a tent, sturdy as that—with people through the slit

that mimics a shy face in profile

determined not to full-on. A lamp dubs its light a little off—it lays across the window

like a head. Where are your lips

that lapse into a stage for the slender dialect

acting a derelict—who let the space with so much knocking,

and let it loosen into rot.

You cross the room like an amen a chest. An amen

choked in the hull of the bulb. I am tired of the museum, of whoever

in our backyard cares

about the lung-black plaques enough to read them. Your chisel, if you are missing it.

The gallows we're too happy

beneath, where I haul you with my calling.

I call you—inside. That, and dear, and how the clothesline smalls this place

into a globe

where you point and pushpin been, and labels strewn with dates—your pens

I've moved under the mattress like the sound the bedsprings make.