Sarah Kain Gutowski​

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Dust and Empty Words

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How careless you have been with your life

and your loves: even your houseplants

 

lean like barflies toward what they crave:

light’s intoxicating constancy, hope’s vapor,

 

something more fertile than dust and

empty words. Now their yellow leaves

 

and limp or brittle stalks remind you

of the jaundiced, passed-out men slumped

 

behind the wheels of cars in the pub parking lot.

There they waited for dawn or death to end

 

their slow withdrawal. Your plants wait for this

grace, too. And not just the exhausted ferns

 

and blanched exotic vines: the walls brandish

their pocked faces every time you raise

 

the blinds and light exposes each wound –

they wear their scars to prove how much damage

 

a life with you produces. The musty stacks of paper

piled high inside the basement feed a growing family

 

of mice and crickets: perhaps the only nurturing

you have ever done, wholly accidental.

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