First this house-
         spoiled, festive crests atop him.
   His yard crackerjacked in
dried corn and ghost bomb gourds.

This house-
   his little potted belly full of ratchet-click activity;
         tools against teeth,
cloth fastened onto skin.

Doorways are used and machines
   activate like instant light through a thicket.
       These eyes clear
this house from old wood, like smokehouse tinder
   striped in tall woodstacks.

Inside, my porridgy fingers and thumbtack teeth
   wreak breakfast into swallowed, soddy meal,
       then out back-
the postmen cinch down and course as if twilight,
     streaming into poured truckboxes
to drive like bleary threads
   in open air.

Every moment of this morning is mechanized,
       the parts reward piles, the heaps
   erode wreckage, the memory is mixed as in clay pots,
and for every part, a switch-turned click.