Buried in the heart of every house
I’ve ever lived lie furnaces. Remote
creatures. In the summer months, their mouths
gape at us through grilles and grates. They note
our comings and our goings like inmates
in an asylum. Apparitions float
before them: volleyballs, paper plates,
Italian sausage, chicken thighs, white
wine, sunburn, Bactine. The furnace waits
in icy silence, longing for the night
the frost arrives—the season of the cough—
when thermostats are turned toward the right.
That is when the fun begins: a moth
flits upward from the basement, eyes aflame,
surprised it’s burning, as its wings drop off.
2 comments:
A nod to Edgar Allan Poe? A furnace that grins in the summer and eats the living in winter. Tell us more.
I am trying to tell more. It was a practice poem for the next big project I am working on.
I seem to have gotten stuck putting on a pair of socks though. I have been working on it for a week and I still haven't gotten it right.
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