How I loved
each bare floor, each
naked wall, the shadows on
newly empty halls.
By day, my head humming
to itself of dreams, I cleaned and
scrubbed
to make life
new; dislodging from the corner,
the old
moths and cicadas
pinned to the screen, the carcasses
of grasshoppers
dangling from beams,
and each windowsill’s clutter of
dried beetles
and dead bees. But,
through each opening, each closing door,
the old life
returns on six legs, or
spins a musty web as it roosts over
a poison pot, or
descends from above
to drink blood in. This is how it
happens: the
settling in—the press
of wilderness returns to carved-out space, to skin.
