I am not inside your haunted house
although I roam the streets
in what you call a tawdry costume.
You are not invested in my snivels,
but your own. All I want now
is a tiny house which I could get gratis
if the city could agree on
where to park the damn things.
I want a roof. I don’t want to share.
My odor is my own and when I ride
the bus downtown, I dread sitting next
to you as much as you do sitting next to me.
You smell of pungent aftershave,
cheap perfume, and a mildewed loofah sponge.
You reek of utility bills, clogged drains,
disinfectant, expired Covid tests in a cupboard,
and an extra winter coat squeezed in your closet.
Although my domicile has a rainfly,
I’d like to give up tents,
ditch the damp cardboard,
and my shopping cart carryall.
In my heyday, I was brim full
of ideas for survival. For assorted reasons,
none of those are in the cards for me these days.
Please take Seattle’s surplus
tiny houses out of storage
inside their chain-link fence
and let me believe in a chair and a bed
and a shelf for my shoes again.
Let me leave my window open or closed.
I want to flush my old ghosts down the toilet,
handle the light switch of my despair
with an ounce of privacy and comfort,
play a card game in the community kitchen.
(after reading a Danny Westneat article in the Northwest section of the Seattle Times, Sunday, October 6, 2024
