Like pasteboard, the seeping planks
buckle underfoot, marked easily
with fingernail or jagged branch. A cool
fungus stench that prickles throats,
let off in filmy pockets when another
door eases open.

Decay fruits here
from the kitchen, sore, spore-forested,
to the bathtub film of yellow mold
and bedclothes thick as brocade
with a mossing mass of gray.

Warped and off-hinged, cabinets
open onto murky pickle jars, crusts of
black tomato sauce, pungent lumps, and
other delicacies unclaimed even
by the fuzzes that have bled
inside the house's flesh to feed.