Visitor

No one has need to sit. I let them lean,
hold up the walls, pin down the carpet. Chairs
are soft and bent and welcome secrets shared
with unsuspecting ears. You used to twist
your hat brim, scuffed in scraped and bruising fists
like baseballs newly umpired in, or fit
the cap snug down, whichever knee would hold
it while your fingers plucked the fraying crease

of pants you could afford to throw away.
Just three years late I banished chairs. My knees
will be the only bent ones here. My soles
the only ones exposed. No one stays long,
so uninvited stiff, head tilting down
to see only my crown, my sullen skull.