Landline

The house is big but all the rooms
are empty and the people taking shelter
there are never in the neighborhood
for longer than a night of sleep,
and time to eat the bread that they
bring home with them.

The sidewalks become gravel
over time without a hand to hold
them tightly packed together,
and the weather can’t decide
what it is looking for with every
passing storm.

A knife sized piece of broken glass
is left on the railing of a balcony
in the tallest hotel rented out
in a city where the rain is always falling.
Back in the room the phone is ringing
but there’s no one calling.

You’d have to follow back the cord
to where it plugs into the power lines
that dissolve holes in the trees caught
in their way.

It’s at this point one makes
the choice if they would rather stay,
or disappear forever in the stained glass
silent stories on the walls that mark
the hallways like the tattoos on her arms
say what she doesn’t.