Black Mold

It isn't smart to be here, it isn't safe.
What remains of the second level floor
creaks a warning—don’t come on me,
I’ll break, I’ll give you right through
to the ground floor.

The signs on the locked doors
said something about demolition
but I didn't care because
I didn't read those signs.
I went through an open window.

Black mold, the annoying and hungry
visitor who never left,
tried to remodel,
chomping chunks off the walls,
throwing them up on the floor,
eating through the glue that kept it all together.

And the bathroom on the first floor:
ceiling all in the bathtub, spongy black mass
covering the floor, the smell moist, acrid,
the toilet seat up and the toilet bowl
painted in human waste tones,

and there a pink loofah sponge hanging
on the tub faucet, a pink disposable razor
resting on the porcelain edge, there because
a bathing woman once stepped out to grab
a forgotten towel, and her visitor decided
to use the soapy bathwater.

I can't leave such a delicious
scene of ruin, a house exposed,
a place where people I knew once lived.