House with Two Frequencies

The fusebox whispers in a dialect of moths.
A late bus sighs through the radio, then another—off by one stop.
Calendar squares unstick and drift like stamps in a sink.
A key I don’t own prints its outline in the bowl.

Left by whom.

The hall mirror keeps a second corridor folded inside it.
On the fridge, alphabets shuffle into a surname I never carried.
Boiling water lifts chalk from the glasses. Lets it fall.
The mantel photo grows a cautious shadow-hand to steady the frame.

Static holds.

The wall clock hops, loses a minute, lands on the old address.
Out back, the washing line is pulled wire-taut by a wind that isn’t listed.
Steam tests three vowels on the lid, then pours.
Two playlists fight. The room keeps both tempos, left and right.
My coat yields a ticket stamped arrival/arrival.
The porch light blinks in the grammar of distant weather.
I set out extra forks, tines toward the door.
The floorboards count footsteps I cannot return to their owners.
Who keeps the ledger?

Some nights the house tunes to the orchard that was here first;
apples roll under the skirting, stop where the sockets hum.
I practise the spare name the magnets invent, just to see if it fits,
then switch off every echo but one:
a row of cups turned open to the dark.