The Courtyard
years ago the street stank of shit so bad they built a house
behind the house with the basement where you live sometimes
though the back house also has a basement where you live
sometimes
where a salmon run of strangers lives
sometimes
stunned by the sun, emerging into the addressless
square
I know both houses are splendid with people
but I don’t believe it
I never see anybody there
Double Jeopardy
a surplus of doors
and a menagerie of locks
a probable fit, a pick, and a tension
wrench, credit card, flathead, ten thousand
combinations, long hours waiting,
a panicked text, fire escape, lowered
ladder, hopped fence, and on your
dashboard, a ski mask
I knew then
I would be broken into
but I couldn’t think of what I had
that you would want
even less, something I would miss
for already I had left everything I loved
in a pile in a kitchen in St. Louis
even my little yellow step-stool
