The door isn't locked. You walk
through the empty rooms and look for a person -
then for a sick one, then for a dead.
There is only no one home. You aren't relieved.
From the inside, you lock the door.
You shelter in life-surfaces. An electric fire, both
elements wink up slowly. The kettle shivers. You
wish it would whistle, but it cuts out, too
automatic. But the coffee's warm. You pour
the milk from the stout safe glass so that the cream
is the first to fall. You use beige quartz sugar
to thicken your drink. You overfill the cup.
The biscuits aren't rich enough. You search out
cake. Only the icing is stale, and it will
turn tender with hot water in your mouth.
Corpse-air outside makes ‘gloaming' tangible.
You shut it out. Venetians snap together.
You sit with your food and beverage until
the capillaries on you calves form a tartan:
red, blue, white, green from electric comfort.
You press your fingers into bruises.
Your shins ache with revival, bright as sex.
The heat in your ankles and throat are the same.
There are too many lights turned on
in the house and you love the guilt.
You are in a house alone and know it, for
you are not at home. The furniture cannot
answer you here like dresses or duty.
You make your fingernails scrape white runs
down and up your arid legs. Your skin
has become the weather again. There is
no key in the door yet, no hope. Sweet coffee
thins within your thorax like a sun.