Continued

Out of Town

Out of Town Years later, the water still drips — there's no one to tighten the valve. It courses through old pipes down to the septic tank. Next morning in the cellar I start the motor with a stick. It shakes and rumbles, and chirps— the switch is broken is all. At night the water arrives illegally, undergroundly, to the very grave where last spring parsley sprouted, and at the foot, beside it, feral sorrel darkens tastily and tartly like clandestine sex. The motor lifts the spirits and returns the night's deductions. It's morning, I hum softly— a stranger will replace me. In the cellar a stream of light rinses the window grate, it pulses, strikes the meter— I catch my rhythm on the stairs. And for memory's sake I hum — as I pass the septic tank— a fluid, underground song about sorrel and a stranger. 54 ...