the house died with Tiger Lily,
the one who inhabited
space we merely lived in
she experienced with experiments
how carpet fiber tastes, how books pull
off shelves, how sun moves from sofa to chair
details of every room she measured
coded into her pink paws
we are deaf without mao-mrrow
we sleep without between us
we occupy an impersonal container
a storage shed with no surprises
proud arched neck, she would show off
her mice whose turds now desecrate her floor
Sara Backer, an MFA candidate at Vermont College of Fine Arts, has two chapbooks: Bicycle Lotus (Left Fork), which won the Turtle Island Poetry Award, and Scavenger Hunt (Dancing Girl Press). Find her other online publications at http://sarabacker.com/publications.
