The Waters Of The Bay Lie Beneath
By Paul Cameron Brown
An abandoned house -
dark salved to eclectic;
crinkly, black pigment of old pine boards
disparate to the elements.
The waters of the bay lie beneath.
A long slope trailing back of brush,
garbles stones hoarse
in the throat of a dust-flecked field
are made more barren
by the skunk cabbage weeds,
the ugly, flotsam cloaks
of horse hair to the neck -
a hair shirt, coddling abrupt the barren pain
tilled from empty soil.
The summer's heat.
Nameless insect waifs
wavering, adjusting tumult
to straighten the tight air
about the outward door frame.
Pinched in windows, glass in
refugee lots billowing about
urine paper;
nails a ruddy pick
dried to rusty blue,
some dim shiny in their cropped disrepair.
A road dry, rotating bare,
nameless zigzagged
only limestone in shelves
meanders in
throngs about stony debris,
sometimes up to this beaten house.