The wet brunette roaches greased back
in stream-lined ease have not,
as I predicted, carried this place away
board and beam. Though we have fattened
them up on raw cabbage and rind.
Weeding out the weak with poison, we've
bred a stronger strain. They can sense the
direction they should not run.

For one year we've bounced off the
hard pine floor while the cheap grout
split into powder. We've swept up the
dandruff of ruin and rolled on dusty
turquoise sheets beneath a maroon quilt.
All the dirt turned to flotsam and
jetsam riding a wave of happy sweat.

I cannot live anywhere quietly and I
can't walk quietly away when what we've been will
continue stomping beneath the strain of stopped
pipes and broken window frames.
Gasping for breath and then finding
soft space in each other's shadows after
we're gone. The spaces we clawed at
and returned to, sirens silenced in the dive
between shoulder and collar bone,
eviction notices burning between the
brown pads of our feet, will remain like graffiti
scratched into the bus shelter's glass.

Also by Allisa Sauraan Neith Explains -->

Allisa Sauraan lives in Phoenix, AZ.

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