Not for sale, keep the devil out Knives by the window, find A death rattle for the ages Twenty year cycle breaking mirror shattered gazes Empty framing tending to a heart Corner creeper lights on hallways still felt dark Jigsaw parquet floor detail inlay for the preservation The stories we know, the stories we tell Nuclear family, nuclear fallout still all is well Cracked plaster exposed brick The wood door swings under a stiff in the summer Pocket door rubber track, feet expansion Same high school graduation picture on the mantle With a smile fit for a home-going Playing dumb but we all knowing Steel wool crack filler In my past on my back looking up at the same ceiling Some time I think we share something the same feeling, somehow Forever's a mighty long time, inshallah, God-willing God bless this sweet home, my beloved haunt 124 Bluestone crouched on thin haunch I hold my breath if I walk past on a visit They replastered the last crooked paths of the lizards My uncle is the ghost of Thanksgiving past First floor, front room, Moms was the last to get the message Now it's just tenants Y'all wasn't here when the bandos was brick skeletons Moss gathered like migrational change Pigeon coop feathers kept breaking the drains These ain't pains, these the regular aches My mom slaved cause she said ownership was breaking the chains Me and my father's main bond was that day we cursed our pigs at our gate Every black life a thriller Even the infant if the don't kill her Pages turn Ezra Jack Keates to iller fates, Arthur Miller Home was based to beatin' the chase from toes tagged in the chiller Now walk past my own door No welcome homes from the shivers Forgiveness like the cold wind Old man remember Let the children come Let your mother hear you laugh Half crushed by the car, dragged herself back A caterwaul Father put her out her misery on the kitchen floor Mom said: Be proud of her, she made it home If these walls could talk they might not, after all, we don't One door been locked since when, why is never said but we know, we know I left that house for two rooms but it got a peephole I ain't been back since then but kids still see ghosts I'm not my ancestors dreams They in the room wishing they could smoke the weed Lean shadows, dust swirling in sunbeams Shadows reach for my son in dreams Some shadows that deep, shadow in me Crossing that threshold again They gon part like the sea Silently pointed to that room but I swear to the Lord I never had the key Somehow it's in my hand now, that brass turned green Grass dead in the yard Philistines chop down the avocado tree I put my ear to the door But all I could hear was my heartbeat God bless this sweet home, my beloved haunt 124 Bluestone crouched on thin haunch What kinda evil you got in there? It ain't evil, just sad. Come on, step on through