Housekeeping
by Ella Kindt
We lay carpet in the garden. Raise lamp trees and linen flowers. In
return, the sky folds down upon us a sheet from the night before.
We lie on this carpet, suture blades of grass in the shape of dreams.
The sky flows through rafters, exits treetops, spills over your oil
slick eyes. Pupils drip down. You take my hand
home with you.
I vacuum the rain off these soft-wood floors, soak the mold off
tendon-thick walls. The spores stay suspended, dry to me. The
carpet lays upon my lungs, hands, heart. The sky only watches.
Because I cannot breathe inside this molded tomb, fibers creeping,
feel sorry for me.
Ella Kindt (she/her) is a 3rd year English and Creative Writing major at Clemson University. She was born and raised in the marshes of Charleston, South Carolina. Her poetry won the undergraduate category in the 2023 Clemson Writers’ Harvest competition, where she read her work in November last year. Find her on Instagram @em_kindt.
