Giving Up the Cleanup

by Chris Biles

Let it slip beneath the floorboards,
let it rove down to safety,
where slits of light illuminate:
drifting dust that will settle someday.
All things stop their grand migrations.
Realize: nothing here will not break down
so let the movement cease.

Say hello to the rot, to the rust,
to cabinets wiped clean with resentful rags.
But dirt is defiant, not worth
the struggle to imprison.
Let it settle, let it stop, let it slip.
Everything settles there
eventually.

When you’re burned out and lost, you’ll
slip down too, to safety,
where slits of light illuminate: all things stop
their grand migrations, all things break.
So put your dreams away for now and join
the filth, find the familiarity, stop
your drifting where you can settle

for a while, at least.

Chris Biles currently lives in Washington, D.C., and works for the Foreign Agricultural Service. She enjoys playing with the light and the dark and losing herself in music, anything outside, and of course, some words here and there. Chris has been published in Blueline Magazine, Signatures Lit and Arts Magazine, Words and Whispers, The Clementine Zine, Fleas on the Dog, FEED Lit Mag, and on SLiPNet.