rust

by Jefferson Hansen

Unstable and drifting, 
We are glued together by secrets. 

Decay is corruption, and corruption is a way of forming. 

The corridor forgets its floor. 
The walls each turn 180 degrees. 
The roof flips upside down. 
The eaves drain inward. 
The house turns vegetable. 

A secret squeaks its way past the guards, 
just above the threshold of audibility 

A proclamation by the backside of a speaker... 

We each change our secrets more than daily 

Fit yours to mine, squirm with foreign guesses, 
congeal around the tension and pulse 

Do not hide without proclaiming in whispers 
your place 

(please) 

Events glance through my undulations 
Then refract at yours 

Congeal 

Strange, you seem stable. 
But seeming can hide your decay. 

Rust is an often-ignored emotion, my stomach tells me. 

Or what must be sloughed off sometimes is. 
Where are we? 

I feel a skin lift from you and say loudly 
that the bridge is secret and the destination 
obvious. 

What sounds tell you to abandon your room? 
Can you tell me? how? 

Where should we go when we lose our clothes? 

The image of a threadbare, floral easy chair 
carries me to your most solid denunciations. 
I have my determined comebacks, formed 
in the split of grandstanding pride. 

Forgetting the learning. Leaning 
at each other