a Victorian or Queen Anne
decayed though, with weathered siding
and dark broken windows
In another version it was an institution
a grey monolithic maze filled with dead ends
and the diminishing shadows of
caretakers I could never catch up to
sliding down concrete walls
Wardens or killers whose footsteps
cracked on pine smelling linoleum
shapes of people outlined by echoes
And now I'm outside running from it
then running to it
A man on the roof looking away
Something on the roof
Nothing, no, nothing
Then I'm inside again twisting down
rickety spiral stairs to basements under basements
and always a fireplace
a cracked fireplace to walk past in fear
There are people in this house
There are muffled voices in this ward
forever in the next room, in another room
