Crash and Burn
(After photographs by Peter Garfield)
The basement drops first, too heavy
to lift. Goodbye mortar and stone
 
with a penchant for mold. Goodbye
grandfather clock with your broken
 
gong and a piano missing half its teeth.
Boxes of books and baby clothes shock
 
from sudden light. Spiders cleave to every
fold, their hairline mouths and sticky sacks
 
shatter in a shower of concrete. The living
room refuses to land, a triangular cape

with shingled wings that cries from Calgary
to Cancun and back again, smashing windows
 
along the way, ripping free of the chimney,
its blackened brick and drag. Wires unravel
 
like veins across the sky, dance a secret
alphabet. Vertigo for the television
 
and stereo who bury themselves
at sea. The bedroom surrenders
 
ivory walls, splayed open, vulnerable
without curtains. The queen bed
 
slumps her bulk against an oak.
Crows shred her ticking heart.
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