The way wasps want
your house
to be their house,
so the dead
try & make
your home
their own—they move in
promising to stay
only a week, luggage
stuffed with old
clothes & tinted photographs.
Building their houses
of paper, buzzing, they draw
the curtains, desilver
the mirrors till years
later, look about
& it's your life
the dead are living.
Wake & rub
the night
from your eyes—the paper
fetched wet
from the yard, the paid
death notices
& ads for living longer
unread. Mine
not the wings
for such a flight—
Each day, later than you like,
the lonely postman
force-feeds words
into the hungry mouth
of the mailbox—
where this small
dunning bird has begun
its brittle,
briefest nest.