New Tenant

Of course they wanted the house,
No neighbours knocked on the wall
Leaving patterns of their fist echoing down the stairwell,
No cupboards opened on a whim,
And the floor had been redone, and the dishes washed
And the counter scrubbed

By me, and the
Sound of the echoe of your voice
In their ears and the electric comotose
Of the thoughts between your words

Did not ring.

And the best part of the house
She'd tell you was its placement

On the street
And not the bleach between the eyes of
The tenant left upstairs or the sound of what
Gets left in the room at the back of the top
Of the stairs
(She went there and she left she said),

But the problem
I would tell you is that
The tenant in the room downstairs
With the mess behind the door
Was not home,

And she was not out because
The rain on the sidewalk might
Ruin the colour of her shoes
That dye her feet orange
Each time she wears them,

And that first impressions
Do not show
How cold the house gets in winter
And how terrible it is to live
In a house

Where the windows are covered
In plastic and where even
The consistent changing of light bulbs
Does not make
The light in the hall stay on.

(She will not get to live with you
And your fight with the heater).