Cable falls, pipe cracks, terracotta caves

on sewer lines 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.