Still nobody at the door.

Junk mail and spam.

Robocalls from the Orient.

I’ll deep fry a turkey

and eat it all myself,

share nothing with nobody.

My Lares and Penates protect me:

the wall heater cranks and huffs,

the windows knock their frames,

the wind slaps and whistles me

back to the voices in my blood,

the disappeared, the stopped music

of the lost in the buckling force

that wheezes into the room.

The wind’s a skilled ventriloquist,

its moans of dead mother, father,

long gone friends, the-soon-to-be,

inquiring into cupboards and drawers.

Are they asking for me? They say

dumb things: “The ink fell from above.”

“I prefer Chapstick to food.”

They can’t go home. They live nowhere

but here. I’d lock them in, if I could,

and tell them this: Don’t stop talking.