with you right in it
if only I adored
the ramshackle house
and the piecemeal bodies
that sleep and fuck and
sometimes sleep within
knowing that morning
never comes
with blanket virgin snow
with cleavers in their hands
they hack at the air
you may burn the building
but I will feel nothing
for this is the way
that we sleep and erase
erase and sleep and
raise and kill the tide
swallowing the brine
as if it were the piss and tears
of all the sailors drowned
for dreaming and never coming home
the safety of nothing
owned and nothing owning
I will feel nothing
though you may burn
the house down about me
you can take the house
and the bed and the car
and the kids, the safety
of the ties that bind
I am losing and victor
yet, falling like rotten teeth
I have never loved you
you have never known me
I am tired of giving you
the time of day
so take the day the time
this is my house and
only I can burn it down
because I feel nothing for you
now that you have killed me
eleanor j jackson 