Our new walls,
empty in the dusk,
hang like sheets
before first light

There is a driven nail
by the stove that could
hold a pan if the walls
stay sturdy. And the

old tenants left a mirror in the
bedroom which looks back at
staring walls with fine cracks
like a museum's basement vase

there are brown smears
in the study - chocolate, blood
or shit, we don't know what
will happen to us here or what

will settle on rented walls
or if nothing will settle
at all. We've just moved

and already we are bitter
cranberries in each other's
mouths, biting about photos,
the place of the table, lay

of the bed. The apartment is a City
Hall we cannot fight. So we turn
like lawyers, against each other,
let the walls stare. There is a mirror

to look into, a nail to hang onto.
Our unopened boxes hide in corners
and closets like beaten children.
And we will take the blood

off the walls and the dust
from the shelves. We have one
year together in a place that
is empty at dusk and feels like fog

inside and between us,
and Christ, tomorrow,
we will live here.