Felice Averno

The house has eyes

A sunburned peel of paint

The silver underneath

Of unevening decay


Summer slaps me down

Pulls air from my lungs

Huffs it out with the ghosts

Of dandelions, each withered dance 

Asbestos dry and sharp

As any dust-devil resistance


I hide within, the screen door scrape

Of your hinged words, a growling cringe

The air softly sieved

Into wormed cascades, rejoined again

As if, like poems

The old, familiar sounds

Were made anew


Pull-to the door

A haze of half-closed days

A fine meridian 

Seems to say


Abandon hope

All who venture here

Cow town

We return to childish homes
Stealing pieces of ourselves
Blocks where
Almost nothing left
Fits
Except  the criss-cross shadows
The iron in that deep part of your nose
Spit on your thumb and rub
Indelible welts
From the formica table’s edge
Where cigarettes burned down
Left from fingers, hard as yellow 
A slight tremor in the ribs
When passing cattle trucks
Slowing, brake, the hard, pneumatic wheeze and shriek
Jolting square, starvation eyes
The jigsaw door, half-smiling
Clouds of puffing smoke
From the stacks above the abattoir