The Dead House

Fireplace blocked, sealed with cardboard, and taped. Furniture trashed, paneling smashed. On the second floor mid-corridor, a rotting cat furry and fey in a nap of  gore glued flat to a spot on the floor, ether-sweet in a frieze of decay, up-staring, popeyed, pissed. The screens I installed belled out, belled in. Every window cracked, broken, or forgotten, left open. The in-gusting Atlantic left smelling sick. A shade softly crashed on a sash, finish nails and a bare molly bolt fanfared me from the gloom. Google the address: from outer space it’s a bare green blot, treeless, erased, terns where we made love, gulls where we fought.