The Tenant's Knees

The sponge is getting black.

The clock says 1:04.

I am tracing the history of strangers

on my kitchen floor.

Near the fridge, a brown melt—

a cigarette left to die

by someone who lived here before the rent

went up and the luck went dry.

Under the sink, the flowers are gone.

Just a gray smear of plastic

where the slow drip of the pipe

erased the pattern, one year at a time.