Nothing bad ever happens in the kitchen

11/13-#1 Outside the parking lot there was an open field with a house in the middle of it. I can’t remember if it was Raleigh or Richmond or somewhere else, just that it was a Dead concert and we were smoking pot near it. I think I was tripping. No paint, no windows, no grass around the porch. Dirt packed from generations of bare feet running over it. It had one tree, we’ll say it was an oak. For years I’ve been chased into this house, a dozen of the slow ones following here and there through the tall grass. It could be February and steel grey, it could be night with the lights from the parking lot glaring through it. It could be Pennsylvania. In the parlor someone’s guts spilled out and the party shrieked. I once climbed into the attic while the first floor filled up with shuffling feet. The kitchen is the same as my grandmother’s in Chattanooga. Nothing bad ever happens in the kitchen.