This is Nothing Compared to What She Did to Herself.
Susan Yount
From a distance, the house looks empty, decrepit.
Like no one ever lived there.
That one two. They both still do. Live. There. Twisted syphilis catalpa stretching
across a crackling road. Parents.
The cat named Mouse.
A pump-house.
Tall grass. Roots tangling brick
This is not the graveyard; this is the house. Dry heaves.
Maybe 12 beers from freedom. Do not visit.
Mouse, I’m parked around the sharp corner of road
pole barn bulldozed
rabbit cages
crumpled goat pen empty horse stall caved. Entwined. Dilapidated. Roots.
It’s been twelve beers. Trembling in the dark. Hours. Grinding cysts
into thumb knuckles. Posthole still digger leans on the rusted fence.
Hay flickers in the fields.
A narrow gravel between those wilted two roots.
They bend toward each other. Curled yellow linoleum. Knotted kitchen curtains.
Mouse dead. A knee sized hole through the bathroom floor.
From a distance, the house looks empty, decrepit.
Like no one ever lived there.
That one two. They both still do. Live. There. Twisted syphilis catalpa stretching
across a crackling road. Parents.
The cat named Mouse.
A pump-house.
Tall grass. Roots tangling brick
This is not the graveyard; this is the house. Dry heaves.
Maybe 12 beers from freedom. Do not visit.
Mouse, I’m parked around the sharp corner of road
pole barn bulldozed
rabbit cages
crumpled goat pen empty horse stall caved. Entwined. Dilapidated. Roots.
It’s been twelve beers. Trembling in the dark. Hours. Grinding cysts
into thumb knuckles. Posthole still digger leans on the rusted fence.
Hay flickers in the fields.
A narrow gravel between those wilted two roots.
They bend toward each other. Curled yellow linoleum. Knotted kitchen curtains.
Mouse dead. A knee sized hole through the bathroom floor.