Static and Grease

The landlord’s truck is idling in the lane

while I sift through the boxes of the dead.

The roof is singing in the cooling rain,

a rattling, tin-drum music overhead.

I found a stack of gas receipts, all thin

and yellowed by the decades and the heat,

weighted by a rag of oil and skin

that smells like ancient engines and the street.

I wiped the grime off the dial of the Philco

and pushed the heavy plug into the wall.

A weather man from somewhere out in Chillicothe

started reading out the chances of a fall.

It’s strange how a circuit holds its breath so long

just to tell you it might rain tomorrow afternoon.

I’m tossing out the rest of it, right or wrong,

filling the dumpster by the light of a pale moon.