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Poem: Internal Dust

In spring she moves

from her old space underground

to the stairs curving

straight to the attic door.

Her path strewn with books,

books falling past her and before her,

books bearing foreign names

dark smudges stuck to the words

wrinkled from bath water and tears.

Carrying her bundle of belongings,

she feels her way

through the blind air

that presses her gently

back into hiding but she will stop

and listen and then

sleepwalk outside.

Whose howling makes her drop

on wet grass and hold the weight

of trees against the night glow?

In the attic, finally,

she paints all the corners white

still the spiders hide

like seeds scattered

from a drunken hand.

Dreaming,

she will lie against the right side of the bed

picking feebly at the words from her sleepwalk

hearing the stories her mother told

on the nights neither could sleep.

She tap-dances on her own bed

of coals.

And she, and I with her,

want to know this:

What may we embrace in winter

when the sun drops small to that far horizon?

Oh it is fitting

to live in this decrepit Victorian

cornered with dust

and always sad in February.