Inside Out

It starts with a doorknob,
a brass trombone turning out
mouse squeaks.
Tiny little mouse pellets
squeeze out of my pores.
I watch them drop to the ground.
Still, waiting for respect.

But, it started with a violent door.
Swinging away from force,
away from poison palmistry,
which, in fact, I read.
Which, in fact, I understood.
Or it was the mouse being
meek; naive.

I swing with doors now. After wooden frames
attack my conscious, I become sub.
I create layers of plumb paste up,
licking drywall,
growing asbestos,
swinging from summer to fall,
landing in winter igloo’s to be swept away
by spring baby sprigs.

Only the mice can bring me back.
Salt sweeping palms turning
yellow bellied
rats, wringing out gathered droppings
of last year.
Only the mice remind me
of stagnant feces laying around
my house,
my home.

And with a cold, slick doorknob,
I turn my insides
out.