THE YURTMASTER

by Mary Biddinger

After a while the meter maids had nothing left
to mete out. So they cleaned the houses we didn’t have.

It only took a few minutes. There was some kind of end
to the street, and it was radiant, the way my mother

tortured the batter on a greased skillet. Just a tiny kill.
We all became our own prey, until nobody cared.

Shouted at our likenesses in rainwater, arm-wrestled
the creeping vinca and almost beat it. The maids

became made, as in impenetrable. They sold us
our own belongings before we missed them.

We had nothing but our bolts of felt and our rods.
Somebody’s church became firewood, char,

then firewood again when the fire came back.
Our city knew better than to build anything for good.

My flock preferred the brisk anonymity of a drive-by
corn stand. Sometimes I valued far too highly

the circular nature of the roof above. The maids
too short to assemble dwellings such as bungalows.

I lacked a fierce mandible, but compensated.
When moorings tore there was simply nobody else.

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