The Chinese elms
insinuate their curved
Mandarin nails
into the plumbing
beneath my house.
Grown tall with greediness,
their hands fill the pipes.
From the privacy of
my grief-spattered kitchen
I look out, see the roto-rooter man
rattling his coil into the drain
as if slipping a ferret
down a rat hole.
“I didn’t call,” I protest.
“I know,” he says, gestures,
“Lady behind you…
You’re all connected.”
This I know for truth.
Too close to strangers,
holed up in these
sagging rooms,
I retreat behind mini blinds,
refuse to acknowledge
the wreckage
he leaves behind
for neighbors to see:
a matted tangle of roots
washed up on my patio
like the hair
of a drowned woman.
Their dark thirst leaks out.
Originally Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 2.
