"slowly turning"

The stairs feel longer this year,
though the house hasn’t shifted.
I keep dropping names
—they fall as coins at times do
when pocket lining's give out,
a faint clatter behind me,
somewhere I never could locate.
Then a sharp snap—(metal on metal)—
as if something in the walls misfired.
I check the light switch out of habit,
though it’s never the switch.

I lose track of mornings.
Yesterday I put the kettle on, twice
and found it cold both times,
the water line much lower than before.
Later it boiled over without a sound,
spilling a thin run of froth
that crept the length of bench
and soaked the corner of an old grocery list
I’d meant to throw out weeks ago.
Afternoons arrive already slumped,
carrying the smell of someone else’s lunch.

The calendar on the fridge
has a smear of tomato sauce on April.
I don’t recall eating anything messy.

Most squares are rubbed pale.
Eraser crumbs drift into the corner’s grit.
Now pages bleed through each other—
May ghosting over June,
a birthday overlapping a funeral,
a dentist appointment I’m sure I never made.
The magnet shaped like a kookaburra
keeps sliding down the page
as if its dates were too heavy.

I kept small lanterns of memory—
their glass fogs—
their wicks cough out smoke—
it wafts into rooms
I’ll try not to think about.
One still smells faintly eucalyptus
from a spill years ago,
though sometimes it smells like dust
from the shed instead.

Rooms feel hollowed out,
like a chest waiting for breath
that doesn’t quite arrive.
Air thickens.
Walls dither with a low static,
the house trilling with aspiration
longer than I can recall.
A cupboard door clicks on its own.
I blame the house,
though part of me blames the weather.

Still, I move.
A step.
Another.
One of them miscounted.

The body carries its own weight
with less argument than before.
Somewhere between beats
I check the kettle again
and find it warm this time,
though I can't recall having turned it on.






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