the writing machine

in the attic of a farmhouse
that sits in the middle
of rotting outbuildings
brown eyed susans
rusting lead-gas cars
with dry-rotting uphosltery

there is an upright piano
with an out of tune high c
in the silence of that attic
are songs i carried on my back
there are cats,
that swarm throughthe rusting tractors,
the crates of junk
the barrels and cages and bones

there is a red linoleum floor
where i am forever dropping
a puzzle piece out an open window,
where i am stackinga chair atop another
atop a table to climb to the ceiling
a stone i am flipping over
where the black ants are running
away with their babies in their teeth

in winter, the ghosts of pigs
stare through the greasy windows
at a black handled phone
still under my name