A slide-guitar and a gentle song
in the earthly hours-
oh, the luxury of
a room of one's own.

A tumble of white sheets,
and an avalanche of laundry
escapes from a plastic basket-
disorder collecting around me
like filings butterflying
around a magnet.
I have to remind myself
that there is some beauty in chaos-
a dignified surrender.

For what a lie there is in order!
A man lies dying,
so we tidy his bed;
a woman is left alone
in the empty house of years past,
and we sweep the floor.

The lights of the city
burn in a tangle
of cool, blue-white disorder.
The crabapple trees outside the window sweat,
exhausted by summer,
their leaves a flagrancy,
an entropy of squamous flesh.

I'm kept awake by this disorderly goddess-
Chaos.
How comforting, to have a tidy and patriarchal God.
I fear I am stuck with this wild-haired harpie,
this bad-tempered shrew.

I sit up, unable to sleep.
My bedroom seems to have been visited by
some kindly, hard-working poltergeist.
What can I say?
I scribble pages in the dark,
and the oxygen of disorder quickens my veins.