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Guilt by Association

Have I bitten off more
Have I strayed too far
Into verdure and azure

Have I lost the one thing
I loved losing

The wind that sings
Through hollowed houses

Of derelict dishes
Standing at attention

The mossy chairs waiting in vain
For curving backs to refill them

The paper labels fluttering off of
Bottles of
Sacrificial wine and stale whisky

Have rancor
And ecstasy

Traded whispers
In locked basements

Have the old smells
Of cooking and yelling 

Found a new home
In someone else’s air

Have the mice and rats made truce
In their hair and newspaper shantytowns
Their urine steeping through old planking
Their chatter making the phone lines remember
When conversations rattled the windows
And the whispers of unborn children
Coiled like steam
Around our throats