Your house

Your house when you are gone goes back to bed tucks its walls carefully under its feet sleeps in undisturbed and warm has toothpicks lying in the carpet. Coats of late-July sun paint the kitchen and back garden smells of cigarette butts wants you back Potted plants and slug-bitten herbs wait for their daddy with upturned leaves crave to suckle with amnesiatic expectancy your bathtowels and shirts, sway on their lines to pass the time between showers the Northwestern motorway praises mass construction meters from these creaking canvass chairs Whispers through clenched metal teeth – “can’t you see I’m busy”. barred from catching up or jumping back on should we ever decide to Surrey Crescent Samoan Church monolith stands centinnel over the valley’s itching and painful progess stretchmarked below its disinterested watch – dreams of palm and papaya, no shoes or shivering In your house while you are at work my back is curved sits side-on to your weathered wooden table outside can’t face this beauty square on Loving absentmindedly sick day left behind-ness hose coiled in patient wait drunk-stolen roadcones stacked for rollcall pickup the belly of your broken gas heater hides behind its metal casing like a frightened child Your house when you are gone misses you likes your order and earlystart routine welcomes strangers entertains them lovingly as if they were its own kin