The upstairs of this house is opened today
like pores in a steam room
by these familiar warm fronts
of coffee aroma.
There have been gaps between the people.
Once, only antiquity and basement mote
rose up, slowly filling the rooms.
Last week I slept here alone,
settled between the towers
of sealed banana boxes.
There were a dozen dozen ladybugs
weightless dead on stale blue rugs;
nothing flying nowhere
not scents, not noises, not furniture, not frames,
not family.
There is a smell of non-living in the loose carpet,
moving in the completely empty rooms
and lying casually in the vents.
A smell of the house lagging between two families;
an anticipation and a remembrance.
There are houses without a street or name.
I’d like to never move in,
but linger
in this eerie smell of non-living
that has no memory and no demands.