Poem: Very Old

 

Very Old

 

brown with dust

cobwebs festoon a doughy wall.

limp ligaments

of dissected houseflies

droop thick.

 

if a duster swept through,

it would be a comet

striking worlds:

epochs of trilobitic creatures,

knotty of crooked limb,

suddenly kicked.

 

time has no purchase here

beyond the slay

and resurrection of shadows.

a clock face stares pale,

cursed to paralysis,

hung on a thread.

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My father lived by himself in the same condo unit for around thirty years in the San Fernando Valley, which is part of Los Angeles.  He never dusted.  Cobwebs hung everywhere.

Wikipedia calls this biome "temperate grasslands, savannahs and shrublands."  More like layers of smog and grime from all the cars; plus dust from the mountains and deserts on the other side of them.  Add, as well, long periods of drought.