Sealing the Leak

The landlord sent a man with a bucket

and now the air in the bedroom is heavy.

It smells like a road being built in my sleep,

a thick, chemical heat dripping through the tiles.

I touched the windowsill to close the latch

and my knuckle came away black.

I wiped it on the curtain before I thought,

and now there’s a permanent bruise on the lace.

Up there, in the cooling sludge on the gutter,

a moth is caught by its paper-thin wings.

It’s preserved in the tar, a gray shape

held fast in the middle of a struggle

that the heat has already decided is over.