The Color of Poison

Questions forged. With heavy mallets. And the broken toes that lead us there. The climb is therapy. As she pulls that foul box down from the attic. Full of rotten cunts and orphaned numbers.

Pausing to let the doorway catch her. She often runs ahead of it. And puzzle as to why the windows are still shut. The world out there. In flattened pennies and vicious steam engines. The darkness in faint touches. As the arithmetic evolves to keep up with us.

These dirty, rumpled rugs. Spoiling the trap doors in our impotence. And the heavy keys that would presume to unlock. The empty boxes that should solve this puzzle.

I stared at the door. As it refused to open. Assuming I had not found the key.

The buckles on her pants coming undone. Like the wings falling off a dying insect. The purpose. The thrust. Of tumbling ladders. Reveals more rooms. But no exit.