Cable falls, pipe cracks, terracotta caves
on sewer pipes descending the hill like a snake
with its skin ripped apart by rose bushes.
Rainwater pierces a buried conduit for the power line,
draining through a fuse panel, corroding wires &
circuit breakers, somehow doesn’t set the house alight.
CO2 quietly exhales through a hole in the wall
left by mistake when a heating duct was removed.
The house has been cursed by its elementals:
water, air, earth, & shit. We should call the cops
on copper pipes that break & enter our lives
so often we could name them after famous junkies.
If this is the American dream, I’d rather buy a cat
that claws & bites while I sleep
in the pause between catastrophes & panic.