In The House

The First Ashes

I have fallen through the floorboards
of my thoughts, collapsed beneath
the edifice we built, the place I thought
could last forever.

I watched the cells divide too quickly
but I thought the structure sound
a system or a disease, no Doctor could
define the difference.

Back again to a white-faced child
peering through the family sofa’s bones,
praying for a safety net, a way
to reach the promised land.

They watch from a distance with
not a dry eye, knowing my house,
my being might be a torment trap
or a barricade.

Here, deep within, I cannot be
reached, no one to turn to
but myself, buried under the past’s earth,
an extinct phoenix.