Where the area code ends

after they say goodnight and turn out the light tiptoe

to the stairs to sit and listen as they talk and watch TV

wonder whether they know you sit crouched up here

waiting for them to shed their humanskin costumes

wake up in the bedroom with the safari curtains closed

on the backyard night against the overpass lights

to get out of bed plant your foot far from the bedside

out of reach of the mantislike claws waiting beneath

wander this suburban townhouse alone tonight

in the kitchen three stairs lead only into the wall

in the living room across from the split-log sofa

goldfish drift in the TV

on the upstairs landing opposite the chockablock closet

a black velvet painting tall as dad depicts an ostrich

the paint shimmers and creeps it’s made of iridescent insects

carpeting the canvas this living painting never looks

the same way twice but the ostrich’s eye always follows you

in this townhouse take comfort the cutlery has no eyes

and the aquarium harbours shells fish can hide in to die

in this townhouse the bedroom closets hide puppets

who have murdered their masters

behind mom and dad’s bedroom closet door

a shaggy blue puppet grunts as he lifts weights

hush don’t let it know you’re alone in the house

but you trip over the butterfly net on the floor

and that puppet slams open the bedroom door

he always slams open the bedroom door chases you

around the house always corners you upstairs

in your parents’ bedroom where you always open

the window and jump out looking up as you fall

in the sky float severed ears and out the dwindling window

that puppet howls at you as you plummet

not down your house’s two storeys but the endless wall

of an apartment tower from which you fall and fall and

wake up in the bedroom with the safari curtains closed

hop away from the bed to evade what lies beneath

wander the house alone tonight and every night

in the kitchen again the three nowhere stairs

in the living room you hide behind the split-log sofa

while mom and your sister have tea with the neighbours

do not have tea with them all their heads are prunes

their mouths are puckered sphincters

they converse unintelligibly but with horrific politeness

wander this suburban townhouse you call home

where the area code ends between Metro Toronto

before the GTA and Markham before the grow ops

wander this townhouse alone tonight and every night

the nightmare always replays you lose count of its rehearsals

the house forever changes sets the sets bend the props warp

the tiny actors come and go through the wire that commutes

from the TV to the world outside

as the safari animal curtains damp the highway onramp lights

past the backyard in the night over a home you can only tell

apart from the others on the same street as the end unit

once you went to the Tanakas next door

their house your house turned backward

like you had walked through a mirror

that suburb where the area code ends like all suburbs

squatting on homeless native land on prime arable land

hatching a labyrinth of lookalike parallel worlds

subdividing into hives of tiny homes and inside each

all the closets teem with rattling red-legged locusts