The Fuel

On one side of the street, people crowd,

staring across at the house that is no longer there.

Shattered glass collects their expressions

and pours them into the ground, where the foundations

of the house still lie buried.

The oil worms its way up and swallows

this small taste of humanity,

before being sucked out by a pump

more insatiable than itself.

 

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Ghost-touched

It travels up the cracks between floorboards like rot.

Fibres decaying more quickly that the feet

wearing them down can pick up on. The centre

bubbles and boils daily, vomiting forth rules

and regimes that make the smooth inner workings

catch in halting breaths. A solid foundation

now revealed to be wet sand, washed away

by the smallest hint of tide. Green, orange, red:

a progression of colours mirror the emotional response

of the gathering crowd. Someone offers a hand

but their fingers are blackened by frostbite.