July 23, 2019

stars

The house is old. The driveway, fissured with weeds. A basement beam appears
to have wilted at the center, giving the room a sad, sagged look. We cross our fingers 
when the plumber comes, fumbling with the nomenclature as he taps the walls 
and speaks of the pipes threaded there like veins. There is always some brokenness 
whose origin we are aiming to identify, wielding the rubber handles of tools like
kid soldiers. When that fails, we scrub the lid of the washing machine until its gloss 
returns, tighten outlet plates, straighten picture frames, water the cactus in the window,
sink into the wicker porch chairs with some cocktail we’ve fashioned out of our
salty disappointment. Meanwhile, our bodies keep churning their countless engines, 
scouring and sloughing while we lean back and watch the stars come out one by one.