The Real Estate

to the seeker all objects

are lonely and dangerous – Fanny Howe

I am in a movie of empty rooms

I am listening to toadflax

sprout between cracked linoleum

I am listening to a howling

it’s like how I remember eating eggs

to become a person

you write in oil

after you write ‘oil’

the difference between leaving and going:

I lay my hands on my chest

turning white as skin peeled

off my shoulders

it floats off into the air

there is no such wind

that means above me is a house

but the weather is not the wiser

smearing the rooms with pale leaves

all a storm of hands waving and waving

Adrian Kien