The Other Half

Again they can’t find anything
In the pantry (even when you point

Or turn on the light) they keep
The heat

Down to save
All they have and they have

A dog that keeps them
Up at night (and other concerns

Like where to bury
Their landslide eyes

At dusk) and dusk
Means helping them

With their folding
Pulling their limbs

In dim light today they can’t
Seem to move their arms right

Tomorrow their legs what is wrong
With them so constantly

Stiff so prone
To heat in the nape

Lost in their lives
As though the lights were always

Out but when they leave
There are nothing

But long nights
Of fear sown into the bedsheets

And the terrible proceedings
Of the windowpane shocked

With bats some part
Of them grows

With the night I know that
And is all bent

Out of shape
There’s the smell too

That their eyes make
Inside the sleep mask how they interrupt

The doorway how
They’d spend every winter

In the North
If they could because they couldn’t

Care less
That the fields have come

Knocking once again
For their little faces back