I am living in a house of our odors
And our memories,
Our illnesses, our rancors.
The parlor leaks.
The red shelf is sagging.
The basement soaked for weeks,
and the stoop beam dragging;

in the morning your scalp appears
Like a pink shell, showing itself
for the first time; the years
are pulling your hairs out one by one
with pallid fingers
But I am parting the curtains
in perpetual welcome.