Ansel Oommen

The House had a secret for me
In its metastatic years
I’d press my ears against its walls
And listen out of fear

You see, there was a certain–
Constant rattle of the pipes:
A sesquicentennial cancer with a
Wheezing much austere

It whistled of a cloistered heart
In some cocooned locale
Where a clock had paused between its pumps
Of moth and muffled air

Alarmed, I’d pace the hallways through
Where in the attic room
A scuttle pursued dry-wall and board
The thumping belvedere

For every once a remissive day
A pupa– forgone repose
Bursts the silence with its moult
And breaks— an imago