Orting, Washington

for Edith

 

Seriously.

Three toilets.

One hot water heater.

Five mossy tarps.

One half-dug well.

Two busted tractors.

Four brain dead trailers.

One Thunderbird.

The rest of the trash

enters me and eats.

 

A shed. A thing like we built

as kids, with stolen boards

and wrong nails. The porch

basted on. The floor a corpse

rotting in the soft spots.

The dishwasher slobbers

rusty brine. The water leans out

of the faucet, only half trying.

The dryer drags a long

at the back of the pack.

 

The trees, those meth addict sticks,

reach like the half-hungry.

The posts, limp men

on a boring day. The earth

just gives up under our feet.

 

A dog is buried in rocky dirt,

but earlier under a junk freezer,

because it was too cold to dig.

When we moved her the red fur

surfaced, and for a moment came

over us like a river, a reaper, a fog,

a flame, reminding us of something here

we actually loved.