Keep House

© Beth Roberts

Something's molting within this house all season, monsoon or dry heat, every day I hop to repeat per formance. I pick up the cast-off, make it stay up, straighten the ruffed-up and tilted, the wilted leaves, crooked horizon with eyes on the tv I fix it all with open air and keep it there, still the dust drapes and rots in socks, his ashes trail, not tumbleweeds these with instruction per creation, temperature and duration. The bottle caps wanna be seeds. There's a hat rack in the hall with something dead behind it. A bright spread on the sofa that creeps off till I knife it still over the gross abstraction beneath it. Ugly bulk, calm yourself. What's here is clear. There's a hole in the bucket, dear, a river in the foyer. There's a heart in the kitchen where you harried. There are souls in the closet that are married, and twins in the coat tree in the bedroom, albeit buried.