The Skeleton Key
I came across a house inside out. I walked through all the walls of the rooms. In bed, I found a black-bearded man with jasper eyes, his neck in a noose. I looked at the ceiling for a hook, but the ceiling was city-lit space and the rope wound out through the dim streets. His eyes leaked. I wished into his face. Before, a storm blew his belongings across the town. I found his daughter wandering and let her rent my dreams. I found his wife leaning in the mirror painting on crow’s feet. I thought I could help and asked. He responded with rain applause, water boiling manhole gongs, the ocean’s rasping invitations. * In the inside-out house’s garden, the central point had no apple tree, instead a tree laden with serpents— no wind there, no windows for a breeze. They recoiled in synchronized motion tongues testing the air in unison, creating an illusion of wind, the Lord walking through creation, tongues retrieving vibrations that could spell “Lord” and call him back as a witness. Under the ticking Medusa tree, Eve listened to an apple promise it had a star to give. With Adam she made an altar, sharpened a need to sacrifice and see if a star would ascend through the waving-snake tree. * Exiled in the tree, there was no space to expand. So they began building streets inside the people. Rush hour lights up skin. While exhaust steams from armpits, news helicopters orbit stomachs. On Friday night, it’s hard to unwind— the chaos of bars transfers through nerves, the smells from cafes spill from our skin making every stranger attractive. Love isn’t sparked by hips swiveling in blushing arms, but flooded buildings endowed with work crews and scaffolding. Some tell their children lore of fleeing, back to the garden where the fruit speaks, back to the inside-out house, and back to the rope winding over dim streets.
