Here a line of cracks, a winter whisper through a hole.
What plaster need could be more evident?
There is no doubt: The shift
of tectonic plates
would not have portent greater
than these creaks of doors, on stairs,
a radiator’s whine, the distillation
of its pained complaints, or when
sinks begin to sing
a song of rust.
I sit. I’d rather sit, before the fire,
and read my fill of jollier times and warmer places,
than open cans of paint, and kits for mixing calk,
or get out the tools
to make repairs.
But duty calls.
But duty calls.
If I’m to forestall
the fall of walls.
the entropic end of all,