Let this pulse
Outrace itself
As my pressure
Fall obscenely
Upon such shoulders
Weighted
Like a heart
Which lifts
These stairs

With grief
I can’t begin
To sort through
Crumbled pieces
Of sheetrock
In that basement
Caved
Beneath old
Floors

Like collapses
Meant to last
As long as breaths
Stay burdens
For interims
Keeping prisons
During lifetimes
Bound
And gagged

Amid
Most recent floods
Near boilers
Burst with anger
Releasing tears
Of feeling
Across remnants
Stained
By fear

Allowing walls
Called God
To deter me
From that plaster
Where holes
Peek into endings
Under tarps
Of troubled
Lies

While concrete
Looks so grim
As if that slab
Seems wasted
Without
My body
Broken
And sprawled atop
Its mess

A reset
Hard
But cold
To remind me
Death is waiting
Beyond their
Trampled landings
Unstable
Though they pass

Each house
A splitting plank
Wedged
Between two choices
Which both seem
Unfulfilling
When the furnace
Breaks
Our crash.

– J. Pigno