Users Who Spiked
WHEN THE WALLS CLOSE IN
Private Notes
Private Notes
Notes
They like to sit by your window
just inside the screened porch
with toothpicks dangling
and dips in.
Between murmurs,
they rock forward to spit
the gummed goop
straight onto the planks.
Like oils the layers build.
Create sticky stepping stones
straight
to your door.
Your neighbor's pie stays in her window – her porch is clean.
Her lawn is cut every Sunday.
The grass grows.
The grass is sheared.
They invite hatted men to set
and the murmurs take on some whisky.
Knees are slapped.
Houses close.
Dormant.
Except for twitching curtains,
reveal only darkness and two clutching fingers.
You moved your bed upstairs last summer.
Sweating your hair into part of your skin
watching the shadows move into the light outside your door.
Sounds of tins rolling from holed pockets
and rounding their way to a settled clatter,
now part of the oil tapestry.
Before you know it
you are chin-to-knees
in the closet
wondering where your neighbors took their furniture
and waiting for the door to be sealed with nicotine sap.