i work in bad advice and little known conspiricies

I slept in the spare room downstairs,
your father’s bookshelves quietly unconscious while,
surrealist paintings bled oil onto my canvas,
the lights were low dimmed
and leaked flickers and flashes
keeping the indoor dusk at bay
as a candle would  cast erratic patterns on the plaster,

of the ceiling,
between us,
one floor up.