The Freshly Renovated Bachelor Suite has its ear
to the ground, has the ear
of the Paying Guest
who’s found a bed down there among
the learning experiences
and automatic functions,
decor objects from HomeSense’s
Blunt Force Trauma Collection

above which the house hovers like a spaceship
in a super-convenient location
and the Hosts walk overland.
A pilot light flickers
like an awareness of self,
chaos whispering through the fittings,
pipes singing, patterns
in the textiles repeating, the weeping tile –

between sound and silence
is music.

The Paying Guest rises in the middle of the night
to turn off the radio where no radio exists,

a disturbance imminent over the sea – no
the lake –
it will come clear in a minute.

The furnace knocks twice
then hesitates, and the Paying Guest
lying in the lettings
remembers the old joke about the drummer
and now the Paying Guest is laughing on the inside.

Photograph © UpNorth Memories