Rusting

and it was just a buzzing. Maybe smoke but no fire
when the house fell down, and it was all
because you were so cruel to me my dear.
It rusted out the hinges--we had a whole house
built from hinges, the way it could open
and shut at every corner--and when the bolts
split apart from their fastenings that was its own way of telling
us that oxidation is really a loss and not a gain,
no matter how much you marvel at the beautiful
red brown color of the precipitant. The same way
that running mascara on a crying girl can look like
lines taken from a favorite charcoal drawing, or
that I was always at my most articulate when
almost of breath, yelling. Maybe that can help explain why,
when it was over, I didn't drink whiskey but, instead,
sat in the kitchen drinking tall glasses of ice water
and looking and wondering how so much sun can
fit on a windowsill without spilling.