Under a Bare Bulb

She whispers not this bed, chair, room,
the next room, porch.
Too familiar, predictable, the boredom unrelenting.
The outcome known before it’s expected.
Thick as molasses and nothing sweet about it.
Cloying, yes, long before a lip reaches the jar’s lip.

She’s a growing leak in the kitchen, words gaining
speed until it’s a continuous stream.
The porcelain stained from the down pouring
of rust and vitriol. The month’s water bill
astronomical. The plumber never calls,
no one believes in a fixed cosmos anymore.

This is not where she wants to be.
Yellow Pages a temporary solution:
a costume shop for a change of life.
What will it take she wonders
to repair the fist-size hole in the wall
above her head? What will it take
to move off the dime, leave the hole
for the wasps and mice?

She shouts that a dozen anthropod species
were just discovered in a cave in Indiana.
Why can’t she discover one cold home?
Not here, but states away, mountains away,
plains away, far-flung oceans,
the tease of horizon’s afterglow.