morning and evening shadows walk the cracked walls
The thick chalk paint peels and
the wooden window shutters split
The hot season can coax voices from this house
Open its broken binding like a book
Read the histories thumbed on the pages of the rooms
Angles corners rubbed soft loved yellow
The arthritic bones of the ceiling beams
ache above me
and like the leaves not swept from the courtyard
Time accumulates and drifts slowly
Later I shall stalk my ancestors
Draw up close under their sun beaten wrinkles
Watch this black ink fix to their heavy frowns
Before I close up the house
The sun slants on
a broken pot leaning out over the water
The wet rails glint and the graves
Rill with dirt
ancestors crowded homes
Touch these stones
Feel over the braile of the dead
The ghost of warmth in the ground
Watch the moon making home
A dog digging
He mourns
I will rest here, before the
Thick earth builds on my boots,
In my mouth